Dance Day 24, the Pill

9:36 pm

Again, I had no clue what to write about.  I checked my email and bingo an article from my dear husband on Homeopathy.  My passion to express myself came flooding  into my fingers.

Any movement in the homeopathic, natural medicine direction brings me joy.  I do not remember the moment when I became an advocate for natural (less is more medicine) approach.  There were a lot of signs for me in that direction but one stands out.  Allow me to vent the air.

When I was 19 or 20 years old, I was told that I have poly-cystic ovaries by a doctor who thought I must have this disease because my period was irregular.  He recommended for me to take the pill for the rest of my life and only get off when I wanted to get pregnant.  I did not know what the pill did but I knew it could not be so bad, since a lot of my friends were on the pill.  They claimed that their boobs grew.  That did not sound like a bad pill.  I got on.  I am already sensitive to my own hormone levels, on the pill, I was a raging maniac.  I cried, I was hungry, I was angry, I was unhappy.  I gained weight.  By the end of the few months, I felt like someone replaced my body.

After I got off, I lost my period.  I mean it, I did not have my period for over a year.

My mom called an old Russian OB who was a friend.  She gave me a list of vitamins to take in order to get back my cycle.  The list was 3 vitamins.  It was something like Vitamin D for 7 days, E for 7 days, Folic Acid for 7 days.  That is it.  My period was back.  I followed her cycle for few months and have been regular ever since.

Since then, I found out what happened to my body when I got on the pill.

It is convenient not to have a my period.

Oh but I still have my period, it is just lighter on the pill.

No, sorry, that was not your period.

That bleeding on the pill, it is just the withdrawal from the pill.  The lighter period was  just a marketing gimmick that is still working.  The inventors of the pill were smart.  They knew that women would stand on their ears if they found out that the pill makes them have no cycle.  NO CYCLE.  Women, goddesses, earth mothers, the connected spiritual guides of the planet, for the sake of convenience lets scrap our moon cycles!  Do you sense anger in my voice?

So yes ladies, you do not have your cycle at all when you are on the pill even though for seven days your pills are a different color.  You just think you do because your pills boxes are marked that way, 28 day cycle followed by 7 days of sugar pills.  Very clever way to keep women thinking they are still connected, don’t you think.

Google it. (this is one of millions of answers)

The thing that drives me crazy is not the doctors.  It is the people taking the pill.  Why are we so ready to pop something in our mouth that is powerful enough to stop us from having our cycle.  I love it that it is called cycle.  The cycle of life.  It is actually happening inside our bodies.  Life, Death, Rebirth.  Over and over, every month.  The cycle that is so powerful, it is capable of creation of life.  The most supreme divine power.

I have told a few friends on the pill that they are not having a period when they think they are and they were shocked by the revelation.  I think some of them did not even believe me.

I love that it is called “the pill” too.  It is easy to substitute it for any other pill for the sake of my story here.  We do not know what any of them do to our bodies.  We trust our doctors.  Trust but Verify.  Oh but medicine has come such a long way, look at our life expectancy now.  How dare you mock it, Olia.  Thank you for the long life expectancy doctors but my period is not a deadly disease.  It is one of those things that make me strong and healthy woman.

10:42 ( I wish I had more time on this topic) I posted it last night but to a wrong blog, oops

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Dance Day 23, Right Now I feel

1:03 pm Friday

So much to do?  I get to the computer and I say to myself.  Oh my god, I have so much to do.  Always so much to do.  When will it stop.  Will there be a day when I have nothing to do.  I will be bored when I have nothing to do.  Thank god, I have so much to do.

There is an exercise I learned with my therapist, Ron Baker.  Its called right now I feel.  We breathe with our eyes gazing at each other sending breath into our feet.  Then we make an “Ahhhh” sound, letting go of all the feelings through sound.  We say,

Right now I feel.

Right now I feel, empty, happy, sad, overwhelmed, unsure of myself, nervous, peaceful, challenged, proud, exploring, curious, lonely, supported, angry, positive, inspired, appreciated, neglected, ugly, beautiful, strong, powerful, fragile.

This is the hardest exercise.  The feelings are fleeting, how can I even feel them?  I do not know what I feel.  I feel nothing.  I feel nothing?  I feel something but I can not describe it with words.  If I feel beautiful and I say it, the next instance I feel shame for saying that.  So I feel beautiful and ashamed?

Yes.  Feel it and say it.  Say it and move on.  Move on and move up.  When I do it, I feel better, even if I did not feel bad to start with.  It makes sense.  When I started writing this blog, I started to feel better.  Even if I resisted it.  When I finish writing each day, like clockwork, better!  Today I sat down to write and I did not know what to write about.

Right now I feel?  I am not expressing my ideas here.  The ideas are just a shell for my feelings.  My ideas are not static.  Like my feelings they are changing.  One day I say there is no free lunch, the next day, I eat free lunch.

My friend has a quote at the end of his emails:

How you feel is not always how it is.

It may not be to you, but it is to me.  It may not be tomorrow but it is now.  Right now I feel sad and life is sad.  Right now I feel happy and life is happy.  Right now I feel love and I love you.  Right now I feel hate and I hate you.

The quote is a reminder for that little voice to wake up.  That little voice that is whispering in the background.  The voice is not the voice of my feelings, it is the voice of my soul.  My soul is the one who understands those fancy quotes.  My soul is beyond feeling hate and hating.  Even when I feel hate, my soul is quietly singing, love.

The soul can only be heard after I let my feelings talk.  They have to be acknowledged so that they will shut up and allow me to see that how it is, is how it is.  How it is, is going on right now in the calm of this room.  How it is, is my fingers hitting the keys, my heart racing to get the next word out.  My breath, the shoveling outside, the snow on the trees, the empty school yard, the water splashing under the passing car’s wheels.  How it is, is how it is.

My parents tell me to watch the news so I will know what is going on.  I know what is going on.  The air is calm today, the light is dim but perfect.  The snow is reflecting light.  It feels brighter.  If the news told me that, I would watch.

9:31 pm Saturday

Dance Day 22, State Farm Insurance

9:56 pm

I gave myself a snow day.  I am doing my College, even if it snows every day but first I have to clean up my past.  I cannot move into the future without cleaning up first.

I teach Isaiah “clean up” with a song every time he moves from one activity to the next.  If he is playing and wants to read, he has to clean up his toys first.  What kind of hypocrite would I be if I did not clean up my business before starting College.

Yury got a text this morning that Parsons is cancelled due to the snow.  That was my sign to cancel Olia College.

Today an auditor called me.  The word audit fills me with fear.  His name is Tasneem but he goes by Sam.  He is an auditor for State Farm insurance.  For two months we have been going back and forth.  He needed numbers from me and I was too busy to get them together.  The other day, I thought I was done with Sam but he called again this morning.  That was my second sign that I needed to finish up work on Olia Designs before I start Olia College.

When I got to work there was already an email waiting from me from Sam.  He was asking me for more numbers.  At the end he said this:

I think both of use need a vacation after this.

This too shall pass.

Thanks

This too shall pass is exactly what I needed to hear.  We are working on at Olia Designs.  We are making a ring that says “This too shall pass.”  Synchronicity is my reminder that I am right where I need to be.  On my path.  Thanks Sam the Auditor.

 

10:29 pm

Dance Day 22, Being here

11:09 pm

Today I had pain on my heart.  When someone you love is suffering, it is hard to enjoy your day.  I tried my best to distract myself with my busy day but I could not focus.  Everything lost its importance today.  We had a long appointment with the architect figuring out our kitchen. I am passionate about where to put the island but not today.  I watched Yura and the architect make decisions.  I agreed to everything, I just wanted it to be over.

The first thing I want to do when someone is suffering is get them out of suffering.  I want to help them to make it stop.  In this situation, I can not help.  I can be there for them.   Be there for me.  My friend Lisa was there for me when I had a hard break up.  I went to her house to sleep over and just hang out but I got emotional and she stayed up all night talking to me while I cried.  I cried and cried and cried.  We went to bed at 4 am.  In the morning, I felt better.

Otherwise being there is just a figure of speech.  The only way Lisa could be there for me is because I was willing to open everything up to her.  If I did not bare my soul to her that night, she would not be able to be there for me, even if she was there.  It feels good to be there for someone and it feels good when someone is there for you.  One way that I know that I am not there is if I am trying to be there, but it feels like I am so far.  That is how I know I am not there.  I am here.

11:58 pm

Dance Day 21, Time Out!

7:43 pm

My sister asked me what do you do if someone lashes out at you in anger?  It was her comment for my post re-program (one of my favorites).  My first reply would be don’t take it on.  That’s what my therapist would say.  That is what all the wise books say.  I have tried it and in my Zen moments, it works.  But most of the time, I am not that enlightened.  How can I not take on someone’s anger when it is directed at me?  Especially if I think I am helping them.  Today, I had that experience and realized there is no way I can stay calm.  No Way!

When someone gets angry at me, I turn around and get angry at them or I get sad and cry, pure reflex.  Or better, I get passive aggressive.  A quiet aggression which is harder to detect as aggression.  It is more insidious because all I do is act hurt but inside I am boiling with anger, it spills out like green ooze, burning everything it is touching.  I look passive but I am aggressive.

Anyway you put it, anger directed at me = anger directed at you.  Lately though, I’ve been experimenting.  I do love my experiments.  I tried to talk calmly in the face of anger by keeping myself calm with breathing and reality checks.  This is a reality check: what they are saying is not true, it is their own anger talking.  At first it worked, but if the person ups the anger, it gets more challenging.  And I never know if they will reach my threshold.  I do not know how long I can hold down the fort, while they are firing away.

The only thing that has worked so far is to walk out of the room.  Time out!  This may seem like I am avoiding it but I am not.  It is the only way I can deal with it.  My intention is to calm myself  and try to help the other person get calm.   I am no Buddha.  If I stay in that room, I will take it and multiply it.  My therapist says, anger spirals down.  Energetically, I think that is what happens.  We go down lower and lower in a spiral into our darkest selves.  When we spiral into our most hidden ugly places everything is painful.  I picture that inside of us we all have our own hell.  Once in a while we descend there.  At that point we can only use defense or offense.

Isaiah is now 20 months old and he has been acting like it.  With more control of his hands and new teeth, came hitting and biting  people, including his own mama and papa.  To discipline him, we have been giving him time outs.  Time out is when I take him to his room and close the door for ONE minute.  It is revolutionary what change can happen in one minute.  The time out experts say it’s a minute for every year of your life.  For me, its 33 minutes, that sounds right.  During that minute he screams like he is being burned alive, a healthy way to get his aggression out in the privacy of his own room.  I used to stand by the door with my heart aching, but now I know we both need it.  Most of the time he walks in there a devil child and comes out smiling, transformed and calm.

These timeouts are sometimes more for me then him.  I can get angry when he is screaming and kicking me while I am trying to put on his diapers.  I know that is what babies do, but I don’t like being kicked when I am helping someone, do you?  Instead of taking out my anger at him, I put him and me into a time out.  We separate for one minute and return calmer and in love again.

The timeout saves mine and Isaiah’s relationship so why not save my other relationships with a little time out.  One day, I got really mad at Yura and shouted “Time out!  I am putting you in Time out!”  It is funny now.  Unfortunately, we cannot put our husbands or our parents into a time out.  All we can do is give it to ourselves.

10:43 pm