Conversation Starters

This morning I was listening to an episode of   You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes  where Pete recounted a recent conversation he'd had with someone about memory.  To be specific, he was talking about memories his daughter, who's maybe preschool/kindergarten-aged, was forming.  Pete's friend said something to the effect of his daughter only really remembering big things, like a family vacation, and not the everyday things like her dad coming to pick her up from school.  Pete guffawed like this person was missing the entire point of life, doubling down that he was certain his daughter would   only  remember things like him coming to pick her up from school.    That  was the core memory, not a random vacation. It made me chuckle as I went about the business of doing a very mundane task -- changing the sheets on my bed -- as I thought about how much Pete  wanted  to be right about this.  That his daughter would be so evolved ...

 "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.  When the student is really ready, the teacher will disappear." - Tao Te Ching For over 11 years, I had an almost daily yoga practice. It started in February 2008 when a housemate and dear friend of mine all but forced me to join her for a class.  She'd selected the studio and told me what time to be ready and because I'm a good wingman, I went along with it -- just for her.  I am  certain  I told the desk staff that I would never return. Famous last words. Not only did I return a week later, I returned the week after that and the week after that until I found a teacher or two I really enjoyed and the next thing you know, I was hooked. Before long, I was enrolled in a monthly membership and prioritizing time on my mat over afterwork drinks. Sometimes I'd compromise and go to class  and then  show up to drinks, normalizing the "wear your yoga gear in public" long before it became the now-standar...

I've pulled a few things from social media that I thought could inspire different posts, but as I stare at them off to the side here, my brain wants to call them pieces of the same puzzle.   The first one is this: Then there's this: Finally, there's this: That last one is obviously from a Timehop of mine -- a quote from an episode of  This American Life  that bangs like a drum through my healing process:  Sometimes we're not ready to let go of the lie that preservers our existence .  Yes, Ira Glass.  Yes, sir. But that sentiment ties back to the notion of the first meme I shared:  so many broken children in adult bodies .  For where else do we learn that we're less-than besides our childhoods? Where else do these patterns get established and engrained?  Where else are we told more that  we are resilient  than in our childhoods?  Kids just bounce back.  They're too young to understand.  What we say or do now will ...

  It is incredible how quickly a trauma can change the brain. That which was once benign, normal, unnoticeable, perhaps even loved, can send the body into such a state of panic and alarm just upon sight or smell or sound or touch. The brain will tell the body to run or fight or freeze. The body will be unable to make a different choice. That is trauma. Many things can be the root of trauma — abuse, violence, a singular moment that “changes everything.” Maybe it’s the flash-bang impact of a car crash, maybe it’s years and years of verbal degradation. Once the brain and the body team up to “protect” you from re-living that harm, you may find yourself seizing up or reacting viciously to something as innocent as the smell of apple pie or a random song on the radio. It might not always be the “obvious” things, like revisiting the place of the accident or standing in the room where something violent happened to you or going to see the doctor that once had to give you bad news. Sometimes ...