The other day as I was perusing the message boards I came upon a thread asking the intriguing question, “Has anyone knit the Clapotis?”

Naturally every time I saw this, the only thing I could think was, “That sounds like an extremely painful STD.”

Which was fine to think, but then an important gateway guarding the flow of action between my brain and my fingers broke down, and I actually wrote that on the message board.

(Important Side Note: For which I totally blame the Prednisone. Or actually, the fact that I’m slowly getting off of it. And my system is punishing me for taking away its PRE-SSSHHHUUUSSS!!, because without it I am Cranky McBitchyPants, but as soon as I take my ever-decreasing dose I am In Love With The Entire World. Well, except for the part that projectile-vomits all over the hallway and then wants to sit in my lap. That part’s a little hard to take no matter what I’m on.)

And let me tell you something. Apparently, The Clapotis? Is no laughing matter. Because except for explaining exactly what a Clapotis is (”a wide scarf/small shawl knitted on the bias with columns of dropped stitches that make waves on the purl side of the fabric”, in case you were wondering), no one has written anything else on this thread. And not only that-I’ve managed to shut down communication on the entire board.

Apparently I need to be a little more careful the next time I Use My Powers.

We started talking about all the TV shows we love to watch, and how glad we are that the writer’s strike is finally over and there are finally new episodes for us to watch. And then suddenly, in the tones of someone undergoing an exhaustive cross-examination at the hands of a crack prosecutor, my mom announced,

“And I already know which shows I’d pick if something happened, and I was only ever allowed to watch 2 shows for the rest of my life.”

I totally understand this behavior, this compulsion to try and anticipate every possible situation one might encounter in the future, and then formulate an appropriate response and/or defense strategy. I myself am quite skilled at it.

Not surprisingly then, many of the sessions with my coach involve the two of us delving into my extensive library of Scary Stuff I’ve Made Up In My Head and attempting to clear out this dense cloud of thought forms.

In one particular session we were having a hard time breaking through, so in an effort to make her point my coach asked, “Well, do you worry about having to learn Braille, just in case you ever go blind?”, thinking that surely, this extreme example would help me to see how irrational I was being.

But apparently she had forgotten who she was talking to, because OF COURSE I said, yes! “Yes, I worry about having to learn Braille, just in case I go blind one day.” Because…doesn’t everyone?

Sometimes, I even scare myself.

I usually bash around quite a bit before I am able to find a more gentle, easier way to get past my latest wall. My first response is always to go for the sledgehammer, without even stopping to ask if there’s another tool that could possibly get the job done. I just get so frustrated whenever I am stuck in a pattern of thoughts, and I can’t find another way to see a given situation.

Sometimes the “sledgehammer method” does help me to release my frustration, but it is a pretty brutal method of navigating through life. So over the past few years I’ve started to ask if maybe there’s another way I could approach these situations in which I feel so stagnant and stuck.

Of course the Universe loves it when we ask questions like this, and so it was not long before I was inspired to pick up Martha Beck’s book on The Joy Diet. In addition to giving us 10 practices for creating a more joyful life, she also talks about Bill O’Hanlon and his suggestion to Do One Thing Differently. As in, if you find yourself having the same argument over and over again with your spouse, the next time you have the argument you have to Do One Thing Differently, like put on a hat, or have the argument while lying in the bathtub.

It sounds silly, but holy cow does it work! I guess committing to take some kind of action opens up a space for new thoughts to come in.

So I decided to apply this strategy to my latest wall, and over the weekend my inner guidance started talking to me about Pema Chodron. I saw a quote of hers on a blog I read, and suddenly she was all I could think about. Suddenly they were replaying Oprah’s radio interview with Pema Chodron on the afternoon I was listening to XM’s “Oprah and Friends” channel. Suddenly I found myself reading the descriptions of all her books on Amazon. And this whole time my inner guidance was chanting, “Get thee to a bookstore,” so I finally went, if only to get that little voice to shut up.

At the bookstore I found a little volume titled, When Things Fall Apart, which is perfect for me because that is exactly how I feel about my life right now. I feel like everything has broken open and spilled out, and maybe I can catch a few grains over here, and mop up a few drops over there, but I can’t change the fact that there’s a great big mess on the table in front of me, at least in my mind.

Pema Chodron describes her own “falling apart” in this way:

“What happened when I got to the abbey was that everything fell apart. All the ways I shield myself, all the ways I delude myself, all the ways I maintain my well-polished self-image-all of it fell apart. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t manipulate the situation. My style was driving everyone else crazy, and I couldn’t find anywhere to hide.

I had always thought of myself as a flexible, obliging person who was well liked by almost everyone. I’d been able to carry this illusion throughout most of my life. During my early years at the abbey, I discovered that I had been living in some kind of misunderstanding. It wasn’t that I didn’t have good qualities, it was just that I was not the ultimate golden girl. I had so much invested in that image of myself, and it just wasn’t holding together anymore. All my unfinished business was exposed vividly and accurately in living Technicolor, not only to myself, but to everyone else as well.” (p. 6,7).

What has come to light for me during these months of sickness and recovery is the issue of self-compassion. I can practice it up to a certain point, but then once I’ve decided that I “should” be better, and I “should” be running at 100%, and I “should” whatever, but I can’t, because I’m still physically rundown and need more time to heal, then I turn into a slave driver and constantly drive and abuse myself mentally. I would never treat another person as meanly as I’ve been treating myself. But I apparently have no problem tyrannizing myself internally to the point of despair.

So I guess it’s finally time for me to learn how to do this differently. I’m not happy about it, but I’ve reached the point where I don’t really have any other choice. Well, I guess I always have a choice, but I’m tired of repeating this same cycle of self-abuse. I guess that I have finally suffered enough. I would really like to start feeling better, and I’ve been doing this long enough now to know that in order to start feeling relief, I need to learn how to change my mind about this situation. So, okay Universe, I’m finally listening. I’m ready for a shift in perception so that I can see this situation differently. And if possible, I’d really like this new view to be sledgehammer-free.

You wouldn’t really know it unless you were my husband, and had to listen this every time you came to visit me in my office: “Oh my god, you did NOT just throw your dirty socks on my office floor, did you?! Oh, the pain! The burning! I’m m-e-l-t-i-n-g…”

I used to think that this was just one of my, um, “personality quirks” until I went to a new therapist and had to fill out an anxiety assessment. As in, “Does your need to clean interfere with your daily life?” (My Response: None of your damn business!) Also, there was an entire section that dealt with one’s anxiety in dealing with “fecal matter” (hm, can’t wait to see what kind of spam I start to get now), which made me feel a lot better about the fact that in 35 years I have never once changed a diaper, and as God as my witness, I NEVER WILL!!, bonding with any future nieces and nephews be damned!

The main way that this disorder manifests for me is that in my mind, whenever I’m reading a book, watching TV, listening to the radio, or listening to anyone speak, I am constantly counting the number of syllables I hear and gathering them into groups of even-numbered words that add up to eight syllables (as in, eight one-syllable words, two four-syllable words, etc.)

So I’m on this new medication to help ease all my symptoms of anxiety, and I’m eagerly awaiting the day when my mind will once again belong to me rather than my OCD thoughts, and then we bought the game “Brain Age” for the Nintendo DS. It’s this little regimen of activities to help enhance your brain function, and do you know what one of the training exercises is? That’s right-syllable counting.

Someone is actually lauding my crazy-ass mental disorder as a skill to be devoutly desired and actively pursued. In a competitive, timed game that rewards you, the quicker and more accurate your syllable-counting skill becomes.

Somehow, that just doesn’t seem right.

But of course I played it, because who wouldn‘t leap on the chance to actively flaunt what is, (unfortunately, in this case), the one thing they are best at in the whole entire world.

When you finish the test they rank your ability in terms of things that move, like a person walking, a bicycle, etc.

Can you guess what my speed was?

ROCKET. SHIP.

I can’t decide whether to celebrate, or to ask for an increase in my meds.