Zipping Through What Keeps Me Down

Zipping Through What Keeps Me Down

Unfortunately, today has been one of those days when very little seems to even have potential for going right. As an eternal optimist, this really bugged me (and still does a bit). I like being an optimist, finding the silver lining hiding somewhere in every single situation, even if it’s tiny and I have to look really hard for a very long time.

Today this was much harder for me, due to certain individuals around me deciding I’m the best dump for their venting, yelling, and other icky feeling…junk. Having a nasty head cold and a gross feeling of allergies starting probably doesn’t help the whole situation, so I’ve put myself into my ‘Silver Lining Search’ mode. This helps me Zip through the crap, and then Zip it away to deal with it later in my writing – it’s surprising just how much I can use these days when I get through the junk, put it away for a while (I like to let it simmer until I need the passion that forms), and then choose a time to just write my heart out and see what comes out.

When temperatures (weather ones in this case) make things even tougher, I recommend a good nap in as cool of a place as possible, to help lower my internal temperature, which will then allow me to not let the junk get to me so easily. Today has been a surprisingly warm day (mid to upper eighties), and I was in a computer lab 95% of my work day, with less ventilation than I’d like, and that area of the A/C turned off while the maintenance department tried to solve the ‘it’s broken’ problem. When they realized that they had done that to the lab in the warmest part of the school day, I got quite a few apologies, and several students accepted those apologies with amazing amounts of grace.  Talk about a major silver lining – students who had been working on required testing, and had just been asking me about the heat in the lab, responded to people they had never met before with wonderful examples of grace. WOW!

Those moments are what help me Zip through the junk – the small tidbits of happiness, of kindness, of hope. A random surprise of a note from a friend, a wonderfully kind response to a necessary e-mail that could have inflamed recipients’ stress levels to extreme status. These things make it so much easier to get through the junk, and then be able to use it in the future.

I know there are stages to grieving and loss. I consider these to be a lot like the stages of zipping through the crap and then zipping it away.

First, denial, and often isolating yourself from the crap that feels like it’s attacking you. I never want to believe that someone is treating me badly (yeah, I see the good in everyone), and so my first instinct is that I misunderstood – even when I know I didn’t misunderstand at all. Then, I want to separate myself from the situation. Part of this is to protect myself from more being shoved at me while I deal, and part is to protect others from any chinks in my armor while I deal. I don’t want to take anything out on others, especially just because it happened to me. Plus, I’m usually an introverted loner, so being alone helps me to figure things out without any outside influences. I know this won’t work for everyone, but it does work for me, so Wahoo! =)

After the denial and isolation comes anger. I don’t lose control, but I do allow myself to get ticked off and snarl a bit. I usually vent into a journal, or to someone who will let me just vent (at this stage, I neither want nor need advice. Just a listening ear). I’ve had people who tell me that I shouldn’t get angry. Why the heck not? I’m human, and I feel all kinds of emotions. It’s healthy. The key is to make sure that I am in control, not my emotions. Plus, feeling the anger, in any form – usually frustration – allows me to make sure I don’t bottle it up and end up exploding (that sounds too painful, anyway), but can rather end up using it toward something useful – a really great workout, letting myself write a painful part of a story, really getting those stubborn weeds out of the garden, focusing better in my meditation – until the focus takes over – that kind of thing.

After anger comes bargaining – trying to regain control with figuring out why it happened (could I have prevented it, or can I make a deal somehow to prevent it in the future). This isn’t always a part that can happen for my situations, so I usually try to focus on how I can deal better in the future if I can’t avoid it completely.

Depression is supposed to follow bargaining, but I don’t do depression. Yes, I get down at times, but my version of a funk can be tossed in an awesome workout, writing, and snuggling my dog. Plus, there’s always reading and napping. When I start to feel down and don’t want to deal with it for very long, I try to do something nice for someone else – let my brain, body, and heart focus on making someone else’s life a bit better, even for a moment.

Finally, here comes the stage known as acceptance. Now, I don’t have to accept the way people treat me, I just have to accept that this happened, deal with it somehow, and move on. When I reach this stage, I know that if it happens again – even if I am pretty sure that it will, given certain circumstances – I’ll be better prepared and able to deal.

Zipping through stuff might not always be super speedy, but it is so worth it when I get there and can zip away the circumstances for a while. Moving on and then coming back and checking in with my reactions to the situation and what happened at that point helps me make sure I’ve actually recovered and moved on. Then, I can use the whole thing for a character, a scene, an emotion that I need to express in some way.

Then, I can take a nap, and catch some ZZZZZZZZZZZs! J

Thank you for your time!

J