[Post 2 of 10]

Album 2: Saturday Night Fever (by various artists)

Picture it. Springfield. 1978. Me, sitting on the edge of my parent's bed, turning the dial on my dad's clock radio back and forth until suddenly...

Emerging from the crackling waves, a disco beat...nn-ttsss nn-ttsss nn-ttsss nn-ttsss nn-ttsss...

Then at 20 seconds...BAM! The falsetto proclamation from angels on high:

"Listen to the ground

There is movement all around

There is something goin' down

And I can feel it

On the waves of the air

There is dancin' out there

If it's somethin' we can share

We can steal it..."

Goose bumps. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Bestill my pounding tween heart, WHAT IS THIS?!

The Saturday Night Fever sound track album, actually, this particular song, Night Fever, by the Bee Gees, stands out as the first time I can recall in my life having had such a visceral reaction to music. Okay, I know. Joe Morello, (see yesterday's post), other than that, I mean. 

It also marks the first time that there was something called, "My Music" - as opposed to "My Parent's Music" or "My Carpool Mom's Music". This was the first crack in childhood, my adolescent identity dancing now just beneath the surface; and by God, I liked it!  (Crikey, getting chills right now just thinking about it!)

This memory underscores the power of music. The right song at the right time is electric! It has the ability to pierce your walls and hit straight to your core with a magic that is transcendent. It can draw out dormant emotions or aspects of your personality that don't exist in the world of spoken language alone and let this part of your soul fly! (Wow, just  realizing that this is a wellness tool seriously missing from my daily life, and I intend to sow it back in.)

Occasionally these days, I do come back to this album. It's great to cook to and for dancing around the house while cleaning. Aaaanndd - in an emergency, it can even help you perform CPR properly if you do chest compressions while singing the refrain from Stayin' Alive! (See the American Heart Association for guidance and training.)

RSO Records, 1977

Music and the Psyche: Ten Albums

My husband just tagged me in a fun little Facebook challenge. Perhaps you've heard of it - Name 10 albums that have influenced your musical taste and had an impact on your life. One album per day for 10 days. No explanations, no reviews, just the cover art.

Sounds like fun, sure, but wait a minute - NO EXPLANATIONS?! You can't ask a blogger to just drop an album cover pic and scroll on my merry way.

No, dear friends! So for the next 10 days, I'm going to complete the challenge in Facebook, and then share the magic from the music with you here. Also, for good measure, I've decided to list them in chronological order of when I first encountered them along life's journey. 

So, without further ado, I give you, Music and the Psyche: Ten Albums.

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Album 1: The Dave Brubeck Quartet's, Time Out

Columbia Records, 1959

This first album differs from all the others on my list in that it was a musical seed that didn't germinate until well into adulthood. My dad has always been a fan of "West Coast Jazz", so I'd heard Brubeck in our home since the day I was born - before I was born, in fact. About a month before I was due, Dad took Mom to a Brubeck concert, and as the story goes, I "kicked wildly through a Joe Morello drum solo."

When I listen to this album, I feel warm and safe and loved. An image comes to mind - my dad standing at the hearth in a plaid flannel shirt and corduroy pants, stoking a crackling fire, Molson's ale on the mantle, shaking his head in time with the pulsing beat around which the instruments dance.

I listen to Brubeck now to conjure this feeling once again - the comfort of a happy childhood. I also listen to it when reading, for dinners, and for parties where I want sophisticated background music to enhance conversation.

Quarantine Tip #1: Vent!

Hey folks - I was just looking over my blogs from the past, and I found a post that struck me as being relevant especially right now - a tip for maintaining mental wellness in very trying times. So, I'm re-posting here a blog entry from when my brother was losing his battle with a rare brain cancer and I was desperately trying to keep it all together emotionally: 

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11/17/16 - The Vortex Vent

"Shadows of Us", by Karen Clarke
[My brother and I.]

So I am NOT doing a very good job of staying out of the Vortex. I am not handling this very well at all. Who would?, I suppose.

Quite often, I am a two-year old in the body of a 50-year old. Occasionally, though, I am a little bit strong. I am typically at my best when I am with my brother actively doing something to help him, talking to him, and/or just sitting next to him. On the other hand, I am at my worst - as today - when I am back at my own house. I feel empty, helpless, and hopeless.

I really, really, really wanted to share with you tips on protecting one's mental health when dealing with serious illness, dying, death, and grief, but I've got nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing to share from my own journey through this experience to inspire you and set a good example of self-care that helps you help others. I totally know it's wrong to say, but I don't really give a damn about my own mental or physical health at the moment.

I know what I should be doing, but I am simply unable [unwilling] to do it. I know well the metaphor of the importance of taking care of oneself in order to best help others - like a parent putting on their own oxygen mask before putting one on their child in an airplane emergency. I have loved tossing that one around at friends and family coping with caring for others, but now it feels trite.

Wait...Actually, now that I think about it, this blog post is a part of self care. Venting one's emotions, as painful as they are, is therapeutic. The other day, I was thinking about the myriad feelings and emotions I cycle through daily, and I wrote the poem below**. Writing that too was therapeutic. 

So I guess I do have a tip for you after all: write (or draw, etc.) your feelings and emotions - painful and dark as they may well be. Share them or not, just get them out of your head and onto a medium. It is a pressure release to prevent full throttle explosion as emotional pain and suffering continues to layer your heart.

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**SAID POEM...


Like a sculptor working stone, pain carves me from the inside out –

rough-edged, 

broken,

torn.

I am angry. I rage 

                        and lash out like a fork-tongued serpent, fangs bared at the world.

I cry torrents of tears,

and thrash about like a wounded shark. 

I weep and wail til my heart’s squeezed dry. 

I am hollow.

I am full.

I am strong.

I am weak.

I am pain.

I am numb.

I am loss.

I am love.

I am grief.

Motivation in Isolation

From early childhood on, my social rules of engagement have always been the same: keenly observe and internalize the social cues around me, and then when I'm absolutely certain I've got it (and only then!), put myself out there publicly.  

I'd been away from regular blogging for so long that I've felt sheepish about returning. With social (online) media, however, the rules of engagement are carved in ever-shifting sand. If I waited until I finally "get it", I'd never engage!

Well, here I am...Karen...re-engaged Karen...

So, how are you all doing in this unprecedented time in which we find ourselves this spring 2020? 

What are you doing to maintain, not only physical, but mental wellness?

Yesterday, feeling powerless and tapped out, I found myself dipping my toes in the edge of the Vortex once again...that is, until I watched the YouTube video, "An Astronaut's Guide to Self Isolation". Check it out:

And that, dear friends, is what got me off the couch, back to blogging, and back to life. Thank you Col. Hadfield :)

Pink Hi-Top Adventures - Back to School

Holy wow - time flies! I just looked over at the "Archives" here and the last time I blogged was early 2018!! Just a few big things that happened in the last year:

December 2018 - graduated from Northern Virginia Community College with an A.S., psychology degree - no small feat considering it took me thirty years to get there...

May 2019 Commencement

July 2019 - had emergency appendectomy at 2:30 am instead of flying to Colorado later that morning for vacation and an amazing training opportunity in Denver...




and finally, 

August 2019 - returned to university to complete my B.S., psychology degree.

This fall will be stressful, but also exciting and fun and I look forward to the challenge, I tell myself on good days; 

How the hell am I going to make it all happen - and where the hell are my glasses [...or keys...or shoes...or books...]?!?!, I say the rest of the time. 

The truth is, life is not as neat and clean and Walton's-Family-Christmas as social media might at times make us feel. For that matter, nor is it as mean and dirty and negative as the news media might project. Most of us are dwelling somewhere in between at any given moment. 

Punctuated equilibrium is the term that the late, great anthropologist Stephen Jay Gould used to describe evolution. Rather than a smooth trajectory of constant change, he said that species plod along from generation to generation with no remarkable genetic changes overall until - BAM! - a cataclysmic event occurs. Those who are adapted to the new conditions created by the cataclysm survive (and subsequently reproduce, passing on their traits), while those who are poorly adapted die off (and of course don't pass on their genes). 

LIFE in general is like that - punctuated equilibrium. That is how personal growth occurs (or fails to occur). We plod along in life...daily routine...minimal highs and lows then - BAM! Something big happens and we are forced to adapt - that is if we want to not just survive, but to thrive.

Which gets me back to this fall...how the hell am I going to make it all happen and thrive?

For five or so years, on and off, I've blogged about my journey through and beyond recovery from alcohol addiction, depression, and anxiety disorder. At this point, I have a pretty solid recovery under my belt. In fact, I'm working in the mental health field as a peer recovery specialist {more on that later}. 

So, I've decided to focus more now on the Adventures part of this blog, and I'm taking you with me, dear reader. Not just adventures in recovery or college, but in really learning how to thrive and grow into my best self. 

I invite you to join me in this journey too! Don't just read...DO. Who are you? What is your purpose on Earth? Where are you going? Where do you want to be? Share with me and others right here, or at any of the Pink Hi-Top Adventures social media sites (below).

Okay, let's power off now and get going!

Connect with Pink Hi-Top Adventures:

https://www.facebook.com/Pink-Hi-Top-Adventures-411429458973219/

https://www.instagram.com/pinkhitops/

https://www.pinterest.com/pinkhitops/

email: pink.hi.tops@gmail.com

Step Two: My Planner

As mentioned in the previous post, recently I caught myself sinking back into depression. I took Step One to get back on track, and now...

Step Two: 

WELLNESS TOOL SUPREME - MY PLANNER

I first encountered personal planners back in 1990. When placing an office supply order at work, one of my coworkers requested DayTimer refills, and I thought, "What the hell is 'day...timer'?". Now mind you, I'd always been the type who poured over office supply catalogs like porn, but I'd never seen a planner quite like this before. This was no ordinary calendar. This was a caramel-colored leather, pocket-sized, hyper-organized success Grail!


Since then, technology may have made it infinitely easier to reconnect with your 3rd grade crush, share ideas around the world, and overthrow a small nation, but for me, and millions of others, paper-based planning beats hi-tech any day! In fact, since partial hospitalization (PHP) five years ago, paper planning has not only remained my go-to for everyday time and life management (i.e., calendar, to do list, contacts, and key info), but has evolved into a valuable tool for maintaining mental health and addiction recovery.
  

MENTAL ILLNESS/ADDICTION MANAGEMENT

To maintain mental and physical wellness, I use my planner to:

• List medications (dose, frequency, etc.);
• Track physical activity/exercise (e.g., steps walked each day, exercise log);
• Track daily water consumption;
• Meal plan;
• Maintain a food log; and,
• Log doctor visits/results, lab work, vaccines, etc.

In addition, I now carry a copy of my "KWRAP"* in my planner for easy reference. 

Created by Mary Ellen Copeland, PhD, Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) is a tool to which I was first introduced in PHP. They gave us handouts to work on in group, but I did mine on the computer at home - with movie clips. (See below. Obviously the meds were kicking in at that point!)

COGNITIVE BEHAVIOR THERAPY (CBT)

CBT is a tool for "modifying dysfunctional thinking and behavior"; and my planner has become a tool for CBT. My planner is a source of affirmations, visualizations, motivational quotes, gratitude lists, and other exercises designed to squash ANTs** and facilitate cognitive restructuring.

ART THERAPY

No, it is not imperative for staying on top of things, but pictures, stickers, and other colorful accents just plain pick me the hell up! The very act of doodling and adding Washi tape, scrapbook paper, and motivational quote stickers to a planner page relaxes me, much the way adult coloring books relieve stress for others.  

My raison d'être

MONEY MANAGEMENT


Needless to say, many of us coping with chronic mental illness and/or addiction struggle heavily with money management. In fact, the symptoms of our illnesses not only make managing finances difficult, but likely are the very things that dug us into our pecuniary pits in the first place. 

Fortunately, with the help of family, friends, and professionals, and a wealth of resources available in books and online now, we can begin moving forward in this area of our lives too. I've dedicated an entire section of my planner to this topic - a one-stop place for planning, tracking, and learning.  

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*If WRAP is pronounced, /rap/, then KWRAP is pronounced, well.../CRAP/. {Even cocooned in my bed by the Vortex, I still had a sense of humour at the time.}
**A.N.T.s - Automatic Negative Thoughts - coined by psychiatrist Dr. Daniel G. Amen, MD.

Step One

Folks, I have 10, count em...T E N! drafts written in the last two months just sitting there on my Blogger home-page-inbox-thingie awaiting final edits before posting. Well, this post is  going up as is - written off the cuff, because blogging is urgently needed self-care right now.

I'm in a bad place right now - not Vortex-level-bad, but getting precariously close to the edge. The warning signs:

• I'm getting more and more anxious and irritable (for no reason);
• I'm continuously scanning my body for symptoms of my untimely demise; 
• I'm überly {new word?} self-critical; and,
• "Automatic negative thoughts" pop out of nowhere. 

Truth be told, I've been a little whole-lot sloppy in recovery for some time now and it's catching up with me. I got complacent. Though I've seen a psychiatrist regularly, I haven't been to a therapist in a couple of years now. 

Also, fall 2017 hit me harder than expected - not so much because of seasonal affective disorder, though. I just didn't realize how the first anniversary of my brothers dying and death would hit me like a ton of bricks...and...

I'm 51 now...

and then because of pharmacy refill-syncing issues and doctors office's holiday closures, I got waaaaay off schedule on my meds. In fact, I did what one should ABSOLUTELY NOT DO: I quit taking two of the three meds I take, because I got so behind on doses.

SO...

how the hell to get back on track?!

STEP ONE: This post