Tag: routine

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call (224 consecutive days. Amygdala to the rescue)

~ Live & Learn ~ 47 Comments

When there are discrepancies between expectations and reality, all kinds of distress signals go off in the brain. It doesn’t matter if it’s a holiday ritual or more mundane habit like how you tie your shoes; if you can’t do it the way you normally do it, you’re biologically engineered to get upset. This in part explains people’s grief and longing for the routines that were the background melodies of their lives before the pandemic — and also their sense of unease as we enter a holiday season unlike any other. The good news is that much of what we miss about our routines and customs, and what makes them beneficial to us as a species, has more to do with their comforting regularity than the actual behaviors. The key to coping during this, or any, time of upheaval is to quickly establish new routines so that, even if the world is uncertain, there are still things you can count on…

Routines, rituals and habits arise from the primitive part of our brains telling us, “Keep doing what you’ve been doing, because you did it before, and you didn’t die.”

…So the unvarying way you shower and shave in the morning, how you always queue up for a latte before work and put your latte to the left of your laptop before checking your email are all essentially subconscious efforts to make your world more predictable, orderly and safe…

…Our brains are literally overburdened with all the uncertainty caused by the pandemic. Not only is there the seeming capriciousness of the virus, but we no longer have the routines that served as the familiar scaffolding of our lives. Things we had already figured out and relegated to the brain’s autopilot function — going to work, visiting the gym, taking the kids to school, meeting friends for dinner, grocery shopping — now require serious thought and risk analysis…

But it’s mundane routines that give us structure to help us pare things down and better navigate the world, which helps us make sense of things and feel that life has meaning…

The truth is that you cannot control what happens in life. But you can create a routine that gives your life a predictable rhythm and secure mooring….

— Kate Murphy, from “Pandemic-Proof Your Habits” (NY Times, November 28, 2020)

Note:

  • My Morning Walk to Cove Island Park. 224 days consecutive days.
  • Photo: Daybreak. December 13, 2020. 6:53 am. 47° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford CT

Driving I-95 South. With Jazzman.

~ Live & Learn ~ 50 Comments

5:38 a.m. T.G.I.F.

68 F. Glorious Summer Day. And, yet for some reason you’re dragging. 

I-95 S traffic is smooth.

7 1/2 hours of sleep. Yet, groggy. Eyes blink to clear.  Makes no sense, you’re so damn tired. 

Exit 8, one-half mile ahead. Get off, go home, go back to bed. Call in Sick.

I slide into the right (slow) lane. A foreign place to me. 

I reduce speed to 55. A walk at a pace uncomfortable for me.

I pass Exit 8.

I trail a Semi. “If you can’t see my mirrors, I can’t see you.” I can’t see much of anything right now Friend.

Waze signals 17 minutes to destination.

Exit 5, one mile ahead. Get off, go home, go back to bed. Call in Sick.

I pass Exit 5.

I reach for the radio.  Spin knob to find Sirius 7 on 70’s. Carole King with Jazzman

Lift me, won’t you lift me
Above the old routine;
Make it nice, play it clean, jazzman
He can sing you into paradise
Or bring you to your knees
Jazzman, take my blues away…

I shift in my seat. Snap out of it. 

Exit 2, last exit. Get off, go home, go back to bed. Call in Sick. Call in Sick? When you really aren’t Sick? Light calendar, handful of appointments. Martyr. Moron. 

I pass Exit 2.

I swing into the center lane and then again over to the left lane. I accelerate. Sigh. I’m home.

I pull into the parking garage. Near empty but for the cars parked overnight.  I walk down the empty hallway. I set my briefcase on my desk.

Lift me, won’t you lift me
Right back into my old routine
Sing me into paradise
Or bring me to my knees

Photo: Jamie Schafer

T.G.I.F.

~ Live & Learn ~ 29 Comments

As he grew older, his life turned into an agreeable routine, with enough human contact to sustain and divert, but not disturb, him. He knew the contentment of feeling less. His emotional life was recast as a social life. He was on nodding and smiling terms with many… He prized stoicism and calm, which he had achieved less through some exercise of philosophy, more from a slow growth within him; a growth like coral, which in most weathers was strong enough to keep out the ocean breakers. Except when it wasn’t.

~ Julian Barnes, The Only Story (Alfred A. Knopf, April 17, 2018)

Art: Phenomenon no. 1 by WanJim Gim (Seoul, Korea)

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

~ Live & Learn ~ 9 Comments

john-o-donohue

We do have a deadening desire to reduce the mystery, the uncertainty of our lives…. We bind our lives in solid chains of forced connections that block and fixate us. …. Our sense of uncertainty and our need for security nail our world down. …. Each time we go out, the world is open and free; it offers itself so graciously to our hearts, to create something new and wholesome from it each day. It is a travesty of possibility and freedom to think we have no choice, that things are the way they are and that the one street, the one right way is all that is allotted to us. Certainty is a subtle destroyer…” “We confine our mystery within the prison of routine and repetition. One of the most deadening forces of all is repetition. Your response to the invitation and edge of your life becomes reduced to a series of automatic reflexes. For example, you are so used to getting up in the morning and observing the morning rituals of washing and dressing. You are still somewhat sleepy, your mind is thinking of things you have to do in the day that lies ahead. You go through these first gestures of the morning often without even noticing that you are doing them. This is a disturbing little image, because it suggests that you live so much of your one life with the same automatic blindness of adaptation…” “Habit is a strong invisible prison. Habits are styles of feeling, perception, or action that have now become second nature to us. A habit is a sure cell of predictability; it can close you off from the unknown, the new, and the unexpected. You were sent to the earth to become a receiver of the unknown. From ancient times, these gifts were prepared for you; now they come towards you across eternal distances. Their destination is the altar of your heart.”

~ John O’Donohue, from Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong

 

Notes: O’Donohue Quote – Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels. O’Donohue Photo – Barry Kibrick

Driving I-95 N. With 45s Spinning.

~ Live & Learn ~ 19 Comments

woman-hide-mask

Picture the old 45 spinning on the RCA, with its slight wobble.

It hits a notch and repeats, and repeats and repeats.

Karen, a blogger friend, from “Healing Grief” had all of the Nacre she could stand.  She gently lifted the arm and suggested a new groove:

Love what Milner suggests practising bead memories. I have a challenge for you Mr K. In your next bead experience, tell us what You feel and see just “being.” No driving, no running, no working, just here, now.”

Healing Grief. Advice from a Woman who has felt Grief. Incomprehensible loss.

Would I be standing as she is, if I was hit? Continue reading “Driving I-95 N. With 45s Spinning.” →