When Life's Gang Aft Agley...
Hi folks -
I'm sharing a useful self-compassion exercise that can help us in tough times.
This video is casual and ad hoc as I've just arrived at my evacuation hotel after prepping my flooded home for the next hurricane. I now need to run out for water and food but I wanted to share this self-compassion exercise with anyone who is feeling angst and worry over further predicted losses as part of the next hurricane. Though my house is largely emptied of furniture, it I still have valued items in there on the highest shelves and reports indicate that it will be completely wrecked with Hurricane Milton. THIS. IS. HARD. It's important to sit with the hard feelings. Yet there is some healing in giving these feelings some context, a home of their own. I hope my comments and suggestions in this video will help.
YOU CAN HELP:
My phone is blowing up with people asking "how can we help?" It's hard to give friends a distinct, actionable task. Daily tasks at a damaged home are too immediate, chaotic and micro to really schedule. Friends who are out of state can't really reach into my house and scoop up worms. If my electrical safety inspector shows up, that's what I'm doing. If the contractors are ready to rip out and demo the next phase of items, I'm making sure every cabinet is empty and demo-ready. And as Hurricane Milton required evacuation, my home ceased to be a place of repair and progress and quickly became a fortress to once again lock down. So it's been a daily dodge left and right.
WAYS TO HELP
- Take a look at KindEdge.com and sign up for my mailing list.
- Follow KindEge.com in social media channels.
- Forward KindEdge.com to others by posting it (or this blog) in your social media pages or share it with friends.
- Take a look at the https://kindedge.com/totems/ page and see if there is anything that inspires you to make a purchase: “totems” are objects that carry meaning in order to bring your intentions toward change into daily life. You can also find many of these items on Amazon.com if you search KindEdge.
- And if you can’t handle more stuff (I’m living out of a car, I get it) you can make a donation here: https://kindedge.com/product/donate-to-kindedge/ … despite this hardship, I want to continue this passion project which is to document the entire methodology I created for myself to drive big life change in small, achievable, bite-sized steps that bring the life that you imagine out of your head and into real life.
If you can invite others, I will continue to deliver all these pieces of this thing - a suite of tools and tasks - that can unlock the alternate ending to your life.
Today's reflections on having left my hurricane-flooded home knowing the next hurricane may take it out completely
I work hard and go deep every day on higher tier self actualization efforts. But during a double-tsunami-hurricane that will fundamentally transform many towns and communities forever, I realized I cannot fill my head with the normal suite of higher expectations. These days, I have come to peace with the fact that in Maslow's hierarchy, my focus needs to be at the bottom level. My big job these days is simple: FIND SHELTER
At four o'clock am Monday I left my hotel in St Petersburg, Florida, in order to tend to all the final tasks needed to prepare my already-flooded home for the destructive hurricane ahead. I would say I'm prepared for total decimation, but the root of the word decimation is "deci," conveying a horrible trauma in losing a tenth of something. However, current weather reports indicate this storm will not offer the compassion to inflict a mere ten percent wreckage. This storm will cause cent-imation. Many people will lose 100%.
With these high stakes, we cannot sit around asking detailed questions or attempt to dot all i's or cross all t's. I'm asked so many questions about what I will do and what will be. My only response to outsiders sharing their normal and understandable human angst with me is that I don't have the luxury of owning the answer to those types of questions. I have let go, because that is the truth. That is what is real. I have redirected my focus to the A-B binary-style daily decisions in the same we we are instructed to do at the eye doctor. You sit in the doctor's chair with two lenses over your eye and the doctor flips them back and forth and asks "Which is better, A or B?" And once you decide, she then switches to a new set of choices, and the doctor repeats "Now which it better, A or B?" And on, and on, and on.
This is where I live, today, here, now, I choose A or B. Food. Water. Shelter. Then I do the same the next day. Hotel to hotel, my true domicile is my car and its life-sustaining contents. My mobile phone is a literal lifeline providing data needed to make these decisions as well as to communicate with hotels who are all handling a surge in demand to house so many newly-homeless families. Any Airbnb that wasn't sunk is booked and people with spare couches and beds have taken in friends in need.
This is hard, yet I'm not carrying any more load than I can handle. I find the next spot and get me and my dog settled. That's it. Prior to the second storm I was spending days at my flooded home working with contractors on repairs while also lifting, wiping, moving or tossing absolutely every single big or small object in the house. A recent electrical inspection showed dangerous zaps and zings that will require a full electrical redo. That big electrical overhaul was meant to begin the day that all were evacuating for the second hurricane, so now returning to my home after a likely ceiling-level flood will be an interesting science experiment to be sure.
There is a potential for mass hysteria in these sorts of events. The hordes of hurricane data being published and the angst-inflating news reports on perpetual repeat create a sort of storm-gasm that triggers the worst of stress responses in our minds and bodies. It's like a shark attacking you in slow motion. You know it will hurt and there will be blood. Our bodies can begin to feel the full pain while only anticipating it. I have fear. I have sorrow. I have losses and I feel shock. But, if you can pardon the flood-related metaphor, I am allowing the truth to wash over me. My home may be gone. My life may be different. My safety may be an uncertain and unpaved path I'll need to trailblaze.
And so it is. And so it will be. If I can keep making my A-B decisions each day, I'll create a dotted line in the right direction. If you tether yourself to time, it will carry you forward. A year from now will look different, but better. My job is only in today, and just to choose A or B.
Today I am safe in Orlando, guarded by the power of The Mouse, I hope. I remain open to the call on this hero's journey. Though I'd recently redesigned my life to align with my higher purpose, I now welcome this additional chance to shuffle all the cards and re-choose, again, adding in all the new wisdom I may have gained. We can always re-choose and we can always begin again. All that I do is legacy for my sons and the longer I can stay alive, the more time I have to leave them those gifts. So in such massive chaos, things can be simple. I just need to choose what will afford me time. One minute more. A or B.
Cheers, cin-cin and hugs to you and yours. I wish you safety, peace, and strong hands with which you can rebuild in whatever way you choose.@MarySueIRL To a Mouse by Rabbie Burns
Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickerin brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal!
I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave
’S a sma’ request:
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
An’ never miss ’t!
Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,
Baith snell an’ keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary Winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro’ thy cell.
That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,
An’ cranreuch cauld!
But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!
