confluence

It has been a while since I’ve posted to this blog. That’s not necessarily unusual. I’ve taken long gaps before. I can say confidently, however, that this break has been one of my most challenging–a first foray into the academic job market & an exhausting season of life overall. By mid-October, I had lost track of the last time I’d taken space for mental health–for hobbies or reading or resting. My “to-do list” reminding me to exercise three times each week and pause to enjoy a hobby four times a week had gone unchecked in my planner for weeks. My dissertation had gone largely untouched outside of my weekly dissertation writing group.

In this time, I realized I was using constant noise–moving from music to Netflix to avoid any silence–to escape myself. With my job applications submitted and a lull before the next rush of deadlines, I set about carving a line back to myself. When I lose my voice, I turn to books. I pour myself into them, feeling the voice of others fill my head until I can first begin to maintain a dialogue with them then begin growing beyond them, again becoming comfortable with the quiet in my own mind and the sound of my voice. Between opportunities to read or listen to books, I began making space for silence–journaling and doing yoga.

This isn’t to say I’ve transformed my personal life or practice. I’m only five days into this work, and I know the commitment will wane–and wax and wane–again. This is to say that, when I commit to the work of engaging with my own voice–my writing, my fears, my vulnerability–through listening to the voices of others, moments of clear connection, of confluence around an essential theme roaring like rapids, emerge.

Such a moment began when I turned back to books. I looked at the long list of works I hoped to read and went to the first one available as an e-book on my library app. I found myself making dinner and listening to the beginning of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild. As she began her journey on the Pacific Crest Trail, she discussed the physical pain and the all-consuming, bodily experience of moving through the landscape. She compared the pain and isolation of her loss and grief to the physical pain of the hike, and I found myself dwelling on this distinction and, at times, the muddiness where physical and emotional meld or inspire each other or depend on each other.

This distinction between the body and the mind emerged in therapy, when I discussed the struggle of working through a moment of writing, and how combination of the rigor of the academic job market, the strain of maintaining the workload of my full-time job, and continuing the march toward a completed dissertation had me exhausted. It struck me with its simplicity when my therapist nudged me to consider the exhaustion and strain as a part of the process. As a marker that I was, indeed, moving through this experience; as a thing that was temporary; as a part–not a whole–of the work.

We do this with athletes, she reminded me. “Of course your legs hurt and your pack feels heavy when you’re new to the hike,” we say. What if we normalize the emotional–and at times physical–effects of this dissertation-writing and job-applying stage? This is distinct from saying this is how the system should be, or that pain and suffering are a hazing ritual we deserve. It is simply saying, they are, and we are not bad or unfit for experiencing them. We are not defined by them; we move through them.

Reframing the stress and pain that emerges at moments of writing came back to me today, reminding me that just like training the physical body, practicing empathy with myself and allowing my emotional experience to take up space and time is a muscle that needs practiced and toned. I found myself listening to the first episode of the new podcast Finding Fred when host Carvell Wallace said, “We tend to think of the realm of feelings as not requiring work or clarity or discipline…”

When we put in the work, we may be doing our health one of its greatest favors. After the podcast, I turned to a TED talk that had been shared with our entire office by a co-worker. Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist, discussed the impact of stress, noting that it isn’t experiencing stress that increasing the risk of death. It is, instead, the belief that stress will kill us that negatively impacts our health. If we can reframe the stress as a marker of what we care about and where the care is coming from, we can better pursue our joy. We can work through the stress, because the stress helps make meaning.

And so, as I work to again bring my mind and body into alignment, I’ll seek ways that my body is telling me that I care–or care too much. I’ll try to remember the stress is temporary, and is a thing I chose as a part of writing this dissertation. And that, beyond the stress, the dissertation is a project that brings me joy and connection and fulfillment. I’ll hold onto these words from McGonigal, reminding me that the stress and challenge doesn’t mean I’m making a bad choice or a choice I’m not qualified for. Instead, I’m training, preparing for the next time I push my thoughts and abilities to the limit:

Chasing meaning is better for your health than trying to avoid discomfort. And so I would say, that's really the best way to make decisions–is go after what it is that creates meaning in your life, and then trust yourself to handle the stress that follows.