On Gratitude and Self-Care

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

Yesterday morning I woke up with that slightly confused feeling of not knowing momentarily where you are or who you are.

It took me a second to adjust. When I did, and I opened my eyes I saw the most beautiful sunrise coming up in my line of vision. I gently touched my husband’s back to wake him up so he could see this gorgeous spectacle outside the window in front of us as well.

We laid there a few minutes in complete silence watching the sun change the colors of the sky so very slowly. It was almost like an artist changing the canvas by mixing the colors they already had on there and making adjustments.

Daren and I have been on a road trip for nearly two weeks and changed locations quite a  bit. It was the first morning in this new place and this view was quite a lovely surprise.

We made our way downstairs to the coffee maker, not knowing how the coffee would turn out. We bumbled around the kitchen and sought to find the things we needed, things we we brought and items in the rental home. We weaved past one another like a well practiced symphony opening and closing cabinets, making do with the things we could find.

Another kitchen, another adjustment. The coffee and breakfast were ok. When it was time to clean up, the previously beautiful sun was at eye level and shining right into the main part of the house and kitchen sink. It was too bright to even see what I was doing. I actually went to find my hand bag to dig out my sunglasses to reach the sponge into the corners of the oddly square shaped pot I made oatmeal in to clean out the parts that were mushy and stuck in this weird pan. The previous evening when we arrived I had felt the opposite, like it was entirely too dark to see anything, no matter how many lights I put on. Both times what I perceived was the wrong level of light – either too much or too little, I felt mildly irritated.

We decided to throw on our shoes to take the dog for a walk and check out the area. I think both Daren and I were a bit disoriented. I went upstairs about 5 times and kept forgetting the same thing. I couldn’t remember where I put my hair tie. Daren couldn’t find his sunglasses. And the sunglasses were direly needed. He came out to walk with us without them.

Suddenly I was really irritated. The sun, the adjustment… the packing and unpacking.

I remembered a conversation I had with a coworker right before I left on vacation almost two weeks ago. She herself just came back from a 2 week vacation and said she thought two weeks was too long to be away. I waved off the thought. I love taking two weeks off and have done it numerous times.

But yesterday morning I knew exactly what she meant. Each of the lovely places (and one which was not lovely) we stayed at was a goldilocks experience in comparison to home where everything is just right. The bed, the height of TV, the shower pressure, the stove… yeah everything.

I missed being home.

My husband and I walked the 3.8 mile route we chose before leaving the house in near silence. I’m not sure we had stopped talking the entire trip, as we somehow have an endless reservoir of things to chat about, but I didn’t want to talk yesterday. I wasn’t feeling it.

I didn’t even know what I was really feeling other than I felt like I had had enough of vacationing. I really just wanted to be home. In my own kitchen, with our coffee maker, and our cats, and bed and shower… and all the creature comforts.

The silence helped me to just feel my emotions and I wondered why I felt like I had had enough.

What is wrong with me? Too much vacation? Is that possible??

I have been practicing how to notice my feelings for over a decade now and I’ve become much more competent after lots and lots and lots of trying to discern what is irking me and/or to come back to a good emotional place.

Yesterday on this walk as we strolled past the billionth cute General Store on this trip, I giggled to myself thinking about how Daren who never complains about anything said something to the effect of “How many lighthouses can we keep going to look at and walk around on their rocks?”. It wasn’t a question as much as an acknowledgement that we needed some time to do nothing and not see all there is to possibly see and cram in.

The lightness and humor I found in what he said was helped me to become grateful that we could do this. I was suddenly annoyed with myself for having been irritated. There are wars going on. People are living in fear. There is poverty. Who am I to feel annoyed by the sunlight in a well-stocked kitchen? Woe is poor me for too much packing and unpacking of our things we are lucky to have.

Then my guilt crept in. I don’t know how common it is, but I feel guilty often about not constantly doing something productive or helpful to the world. In some small way (no, if I’m honest with myself large way), I feel guilty for being able to do nothing except enjoy life for a little while.

So I asked myself why that is, which I actually didn’t have to think about – I knew the answer to it and it had to do with the gratefulness I had suddenly felt that I am on a beautiful walk in a Tuesday morning.

There is so much suffering and pain, hurt and meanness, coldness, depression, poverty… how can I just go about life and take pictures of beautiful things? Sleep in? Make new meals in new places? Dine out and try new foods? My dog has a better life than a lot of people. I have trouble reconciling this!

I try to do my part for the world and to make a difference in other peoples’ lives. But for some reason, I do not think it’s enough.

Is that my problem or is that A problem? I’m not sure.

So we kept walking and I kept thinking.

In the yoga classes I teach, I often highlight the importance of self-care. The importance of filling your own cup.

In the past two weeks I cannot tell you how often I thought or commented to my husband how much nature charges my soul. I’ve referenced video games – particularly the Legend of Zelda. Games where the character is low on “life” and goes to ponds and into the mountains to re-charge. They sit there and you can see on the screen the hearts or whatever symbol of the character’s strength build back up.

I’m not going to lie – I haven’t played video games in a serious way since the late 80’s/early 90’s so I cannot even be sure that is something that is done anymore. But it speaks to the importance of getting away from life; particularly in nature and “recharging”.

I began to reconcile my guilt with the thought of filling my cup. I remembered before I left how much I desperately felt I needed it. I also reconciled this guilt with learning about new things and trying new foods and thinking about new ways to help myself and others be the best version of ourselves in this crazy world. To be a part of helping to make it less crazy. Like the idea of video game characters even realizing they need to refuel before they can keep going out there on their adventures and slaying the “bad” things that threaten us all.

On the way back from walk we passed a house with “free” things in the front which I noticed on the way out, and I grabbed two wooden hanging art things that I envisioned painting onto them some of the photos I had taken. It made me excited to go back to our rental and chose some photos to work with, then to go back home and to paint these wooden treasures.

By the time we got back to the rental, Daren, Koji the dog and myself were winded and thirsty. Daren sat outside to cool off. Koji went to take a long drink, and I grabbed my laptop and sat on the couch to capture some of my ideas. Minutes later I was fantasizing about our next vacation. I thought maybe we can take a long weekend to take a drive and then work remotely from a different place. I started looking at rental places in Upstate NY.

What is wrong with me??? I’m wanting to go home, but I’m already planning our next trip? I am guilty about having so much free, unproductive time, and now planning more.

I almost don’t understand myself, but I think I do. I love so many things. I love life. I also really really like my everyday life at home. When you like your job and family (most of the time); when you love your house, neighborhood, town, friends, hobbies, groups, etc.,  going home from vacation is awesome.

So why do I take vacations? Well – I love to travel too. I really love seeing new places. Imagining what it would be like to live in the dwellings in the locations where we visit. I love visiting new sites, hiking new woods, going to new grocery stores and getting outside to exercise in different places. I love it all. It helps me to miss and appreciate my everyday life too. As we pass homes for sale and I’m compelled to look them up – I am reminded that I love where I am. And most importantly, it recharges me.

I am in complete gratitude for everything around me. It is gratitude that helps put me back into perspective when I fall out of it. How dare I be grumpy about the not so perfect coffee maker? And how dare I feel guilty about doing things I love? I am grateful for that guilt. It helps me to remember that I’m lucky and that I should help others in any possible way that I can do so. Am I perfect at this? No – but I keep doing things and keep trying. If we all did our part to help the world be a better place, it would be a better place. The more I see of it, the more I love and want to protect it and the creatures in it.

I feel so lucky and blessed to love my life and to want to come home from a vacation to get back to it. My life at home is as full as my life on vacation. I remember long ago reading a passage on the importance of making every moment of your life fulfilling, so much so that the desire to retire or vacation while pleasant, is not what you are living for.

Not everyone loves the life they are living. I am very lucky to have that feeling. It’s not to be taken for granted for a single moment.

I am fully aware that this state can change at any moment and that it would be as normal and expected as never having been comfortable and in love with the things and people (and pets) around me.

So for now, for the moment I am thankful for the experience I am having in life. I will try to not feel guilty about it and to do my part to keep making the world a better place. And I will be thankful that time off brings me back to this very perspective of gratitude again and again.

Namaste

Pictured below are the two pieces of free things I picked up and hope to transform into something even more beautiful and meaningful.

On Why I Clean Everyday

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

First – why do you care? Haha, but really… If you care at all, why do you? How does it affect you?

When I was 22 years old I moved to Cape Cod. I was entering the Active USCG Reserves while transitioning from a military member to a military spouse. My new home was located on a military base. It was not my first home as an adult, but it was the first home I set up alone.

This period was a transitional time in my life. Before then I went straight from high school into the military. I was married just over a year later and unexpectedly pregnant 6 months after that. My life was busy and I had not truly actively planned anything in my life until that point. As I looked around at all the boxes and pictures to hang, the disorder around me was affecting my mind. Or was it the disorder in my mind affecting my outer world?

I quickly went to work setting up home. While I opened boxes, and organized the outward disarray, the disorder in my mind started to unravel into digestible thoughts. How do I gather all the college credits I accumulated into applying for a degree? Do I quit smoking? Have another baby? What do I want to be when I grow up?

As I unpacked and moved items, then moved items again into better places I made notes – call the education office, look into the local college, schedule that physical, reach out to neighbors, ask about pediatricians, talk to spouse about a new baby while this little guy was still young so he had a playmate…

The act of outwardly organizing was helpful. I was making progress on something important, but also the monotony combined with the active thinking of where we would most easily grab a plate was just enough active/inactive brain power to keep my mind focused on thinking about the next phase of my life.

When the house was all set up and arranged just so, I missed the act of taking care of it. So I cleaned it really well. Again, the repetition and combination of active/inactive thought was helpful in  organizing my inner thoughts. As they were all I had while doing this type of work.

I learned then I very much enjoyed cleaning. All these years later I would label what I was doing as a sort of meditation. But at the time it only felt like cleaning. I started to clean everyday in various ways. There was everyday picking up (dishes, laundry, diapers, trash, wipe the table…) but also things that needed to happen often but not daily – wash floors, launder sheets, clean bathroom. I put the nondaily essentials into a schedule for myself the way I learned in my years of cooking and ended up doing meal planning and shopping… basically transferring my work skills to my home. Then I moved these things to the outside – fix fence, mow lawn, ask about the grass seeds that are supposedly free…

I met my neighbors. They were all lovely. The one who was the friendliest lived across the street and worked on the base as a cleaner for the military houses in between family transitions. I don’t remember her name but I will call her Melanie. I asked Melanie what she did when she cleaned these empty houses and she told me all about the floors and the blinds and the walls and corners, and all the checkboxes she had to complete. Surprisingly her house was quite a mess and she didn’t really enjoy cleaning. But she did comment that she saw me cleaning often.

What ???

Saw me cleaning? How?

Through your window Melanie replied…

Through my window I thought?

Now I was embarrassed. But intrigued by what she told me. I hadn’t thought about cleaning blinds or paying attention to ceiling or floor corners.

A day or two later I decided to tackle the blinds. As I was doing so Melanie waved to me from insider her home across the street. I was slightly embarrassed yet again but continued to clean the blinds as if it were a normal everyday occurrence.

The next time I saw Melanie she commented on my cleaning again. Melanie commenting on my cleaning became the standard. It embarrassed me so I often would wait until I didn’t see her mini-van in the carport to clean anywhere near my own windows or outside.

None-the-less from there I continued a lifelong habit of cleaning nearly daily and scheduling various cleaning tasks for various days of the week.

Through the years I’ve had to explain and defend my cleaning to my partners, neighbors, kids, step-kids, friends who comment with some kind of annoyance that my house is clean. I was always trying to hide it, clarify where I saw dirt or oils, negotiate with the kids to just vacuum that room – yes on this vacuum setting. It was exhausting. I loved to clean when no one was home so I didn’t have to explain it.

Which brings me to the point of this blog. Why did anyone care that I was cleaning in the first place? I didn’t really ask for help. The kids chores of table setting, dish washing, cleaning their own bathrooms on a schedule or scraping the cat litter of the cats they wanted were not chores of some Nazi clean loving freak. The cleanliness of other people’s homes doesn’t affect how much I enjoy visiting their home or their company in any way. I’m not judging those who don’t like to clean. I know I’m unusual in this particular way.

Which brings me to a bigger question. Why does anyone really care what other people do? How they take care of their home, how often they cut their lawn, their hair, their fingernails? How deep into my life do you care about what I do? Why does my lawn count and my fingernails not so much?

At what point does what I do affect truly affect anyone else? Or does what I am doing make others reflect on what they are doing? And is that really my problem? Should I be hiding my true nature in worrying about how others will look at me or themselves?  I did hide my real self for a long time worrying about what other people thought. That was not healthy.

This question grows from me into the larger scale. Why does anyone care who anyone loves or how they use their body to please a lover? How does the spices one uses in their cooking matter to you? Why does it matter how other cultures cook, pray, love, dress, and take care of one another?

Yes – there are things that affect other people in some ways. But not as many as you think. Maybe the one house on the block with the overgrown lawn can bring down the property value of the street. There are things you can have influence over – like talking to that homeowner and maybe even offering to cut their lawn because it’s a single parent short on time. But perhaps do back down and accept how things are if that person doesn’t reply the way you’d like. You cannot control other people and just because you don’t like something they do or don’t do, it doesn’t make them wrong or crazy. Why waste any mental energy on something you cannot control?

I’m not saying it’s easy to do this, I’m just offering the suggestion to ask yourself why you might care and why you are wasting your mental energy on something you can’t control. There is a locus of what you can control, influence and what you have no control over.

I clean all the time. I like it. It clears my mind. For me the house doesn’t need to be very dirty to clean it (most folks shower daily even when they aren’t that dirty). It is something in this crazy world that I feel I have control over. I like the way I feel after moving around and taking care of the animate and inanimate objects that I own like my bed, plants and pets. I like the way those objects like being taken care of by me. I like the way my surroundings look. The question I asked myself when I was 22 about the disorder of my environment affecting my mind or if it was the other way around is irrelevant to me today. Both matter and this is one of my methods to tackle both.

But why do I need to even explain that?

So I ask again and again and again… why does it matter?

You have control over the thoughts about why this or anything matters. Are you wasting your energy on something you want to waste it on? Do you have control over it? Influence? Neither?

I’m going to clean whether anyone likes it or not. I hope you collect your gnomes or pink socks or do whatever it is that you like as well as long as no one is getting hurt. Don’t worry if I like it, I love you for being you and doing what you love.

Make sure you are doing no harm and then do what you love without shame or question or worry.

Be the change you want to see. Be what you wish the world to be.

It’s all you can do.

You are the MOST important person on your gift list

Posted on by Esterina Anderson
  • You are the most important person to worry about. Give your time and attention to yourself first.
  • Giving to others is the greatest gift you can give yourself.
  • Giving to those who are not in gratitude is a waste of the world’s resources – including your own unique gifts and energy.

 

When I was in elementary school and learned to write; then later in life when I learned how to facilitate meetings I learned: 1) Tell them what you are going to tell them. 2) Tell them. 3) Tell them what you told them.

 

There is a body of literature about whether or not mention what you don’t want in your life. I mostly agree that we shouldn’t picture what we would like to avoid, but in the case of this blog, I’m going to stick with how the Yamas and Niyamas are explained. In yogic traditions, the Yamas and Niyamas are what govern ethical parameters. The yamas start out with the don’ts.

 

 

You are the most important person to worry about. Give your time and attention to yourself first.

 

This doesn’t mean buy yourself presents. This is not a justification to be selfish. This is no reason not to keep promises, let others down, ignore how you’ve hurt people, or be mean. I can go on.

 

What this means is akin to your car not running if you do not put gas in it. Take care of yourself. Get enough sleep. Fuel up on nourishment that makes you your best. Nourishment not just in the way of food, but of things that fill your heart – like spending time with friends or loved ones, being in nature, taking a bath, meditating or praying.

 

The specifics are different for each of us. It’s not monetary. Items outside of ourselves can never provide lasting inner joy the way taking care of ourselves can. What fills your heart and soul? Do that. Make sure you are filled so you can fill others.

 

Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare ~Audre Lorde

 

 

Giving to others is the greatest gift you can give yourself.

 

Giving to others can be the most selfish form of feeling good. This is a way in which its ok to be selfish, because you are spreading your gifts, your love and the things that were given to you. There is oodles and oodles of evidence, both scientific and purely experience-based confirming that giving is selfish and feels far better that expecting or receiving anything from anyone. This is non-debatable. If you disagree you likely did not give properly from your heart at any point.

 

This doesn’t mean birthday and holiday presents. It’s not the obligatory presence at some party or event for a relative you don’t know. It’s giving because you know someone needs or wants something and you do it from the heart.

 

A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle ~James Keller.

 

 

Giving to those who are not in gratitude is a waste of the world’s resources – including your own unique gifts and energy.

 

Whether or not you are Christian most of us can agree that a very enlightened man who we know today as Jesus Christ walked the earth and made a lasting impact on future generations.

 

Jesus did not give to the rich. He didn’t even associate with the well-to-do or spread his knowledge to them. Why? Well the obvious is that they didn’t need anything material from him, but why did he spend most of his time preaching amongst the poor?

 

Perhaps because he was able to discern that it would not be appreciated or accepted by people of means and he used his limited energy on those who could understand the messages about taking care of one another. He didn’t bother to waste his own unique gifts and words on those not in gratitude to receive his gifts.

 

I’ve learned this the hard way. I’ve spent way too much time trying to give and please family members, old friends, extended family, in-law family, teachers, bosses… you name it; on individuals who in no way recognized, cared for or were in gratitude for efforts that I did not have to make. It was draining. I felt used. But to be honest it wasn’t anything they asked for – it was only me trying to make people I cared about happy.

 

There is a difference between thanks and gratitude. It is wasted if it’s not received with pleasure. Thank you is just consciousness of the benefit received, perhaps a fleeting excitement. Gratitude is deep appreciation and the willingness to want to do something in return either for the giver or the world, knowing that we shouldn’t expect anything, and when we do it’s a gift to be shared. It’s almost a way of life.

 

Don’t drain yourself. Give to those who appreciate and will be in gratitude. Live in gratitude yourself so you can recognize it. Again – so much literature about how even being in gratitude can make you happy. Evidence and experienced based literature.

 

Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.” – Henry Ward Beecher

 

 

  • You are the most important person to worry about. Give your time and attention to yourself first.
  • Giving to others is the greatest gift you can give yourself.
  • Giving to those who are not in gratitude is a waste of the world’s resources – including your own unique gifts and energy.

 

And this is why you are the MOST important person on your gift list.

 

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