Boundaries

Washington is in the middle of a week of brutally hot weather, exceeding 100 degrees and shattering long-standing records.  With the humidity, our heat indices have been even more relentless. Yet this morning I've been quite comfortably luxuriating on my north-facing balcony with a slight breeze. I breakfasted outdoors, a guilty pleasure I've enjoyed most of my adult life.  As I did so, I found my mind drifting back to several patios, decks, and balconies on which I had breakfasted and to the friends with whom I had  shared stories and laughed as we ate.

Before eating, I had finished a novel that I started a month ago on my staycation. In it the main characters started the book as boys, and by the end, they had become old men with failing eyesight. The book left me in a reflective space, which may have spawned my breakfast reverie.  I've been thinking about this post for some time. For once I am not going to use the excuse of no time to write. If you had asked I wouldn't have known why I hadn't written, but this morning I know that I just hadn't had enough perspective.

I believe the expression "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear" came from the I Ching, but I also believe that a number of Eastern philosophies hold something similar to be true. During my outdoor breakfast contemplation this morning, the pieces began to fall into place for me.  I, as the student, must be ready because lots of opportunities to learn a similar lesson have appeared.

During my four-month detail last fall and early winter, I became keenly aware that my life had spun totally out of control in recent years--to the extent that my physical and mental health were being compromised and my relationships were back-burnered, awaiting that precious "time" for nurturing. Certainly, time for writing, which really nourishes my soul, had become a low priority. I fell asleep from exhaustion when I tried to meditate. I had to be away from my long-standing, abusive work environment to get the perspective to recognize that.

In those treasured four months, I was able to see what had evaded me for so long. In my situation I had lost either the self-respect or the self-confidence to set and stick to my boundaries.  When I returned to my permanent job, I wrote in big block letters with a box around them on the whiteboard behind my desk, where I looked at it every time I entered my office, "boundary clarity."

In a matter of days, I was tested.  An unsustainable level of dark work again began flowing at me from very high places. Encouraged by my "boundary clarity" reminder, I began telling my clients that I would work with them, but it would be three months, four months, and even five months later.  I brought in a contractor to do work with one client organization, which had needs that wouldn't wait. Still, the darkness and the volume of the work were too much.

Within a month I knew something had to change.  After several conversations with my new boss, it became clear that the organization was more concerned about keeping my very senior customers happy than in keeping me healthy and happy. No relief would be coming, but I was assured that I was very good at this work.  After an unusually frightening dream about the same time, I knew I had to leave.  I began the process of planning for an end-of-the-summer departure.  I was quite transparent with my boss and his boss about planning for an August separation.

I had no other job from which to make money, and I really need serious income for several years yet I knew I needed to take care of myself. My friends worried a bit more than I did about how I would live, but as soon as I got very clear about needing to move on, I had faith that something would work out.  My big focus was on getting my clients, most of whom I'd worked with for years, to a good transition point. I learned about a month ago that the boss didn't really think I'd go, but he obviously doesn't know my courage when my spiritual path has become clear to me, and it had become very clear to me.

As soon as I had become very clear, out of the blue I received a call from a potential employer.  Job announcements began falling into my email inbox with regularity.  Even USAJobs, which has seldom had appropriate jobs, sent me a promising vacancy announcement. I am now just five weeks from my departure date, and I have two very strong prospects, each of which allows me to work in my "sweet spot," and each of which will be a significant increase in income.  Perhaps as encouraging is that along the way as I networked with former bosses and colleagues, I found great sources for independent contract work.

In parallel, I realized how my work situation has made me unavailable for time with friends and even to pursue a primary relationship.  In fact, for the first time in a long time, I added up how many years it had been since I'd had more than a date or two with someone.  It wasn't an acceptable number.  I began focusing my intention on at least meeting some men.  I had first dates with people I would have just checked off my list a year ago.  Most of them weren't serious prospects, but I was at least getting out and sending the Universe a message that I was serious.

Along the way, something else happened.  While I just didn't have much in common with most of these men, there was another category.  The only way I can describe them is "Really?!"  The one who pronounced that he had two other women in his life but would like to add others. "Really?!" There was one who was married but said his wife was OK with him dating others. "Really?!"  Last week, there was one who seriously treated me like a child. "Really?!"  I wanted to add, "What do I look like?" but the truth is, I probably looked like a doormat, both at work and in my personal life.

I like to be nice to people.  If I have ever been rude, it was either because I was tired or didn't realize what I was doing.  In each of these cases, I just walked out.  The last one in the middle of dinner at a famous-chef restaurant that I really love. As a serious foodie, that should have been hard, but it wasn't. Following each of these, someone more interesting followed.  I'm still not there yet, but...progress.

In the 2006 movie "The Holiday," one of two female leads, Iris, played by Kate Winslet, has also been down on her confidence and has allowed her former boyfriend to walk all over her.  In the movie, she meets an octogenarian, who is former screenwriter.  He begins "assigning" her movie viewing of classic films, all of which have strong women leads.  After said boyfriend crosses the line yet one more time, she kicks him out of her life.  He is incredulous.  "What's gotten into you, Iris?" he asks.

After a pause, she replies, "I think it is something resembling gumption." And, away she sends him.

As I've been contemplating this post over the last few weeks, that scene and those words have played over and again in my mind.  Where did my gumption go, and more importantly, how did I let it go. I have been a strong woman most of my adult life.  Anyone who has known me before this century would certainly have laughed at the thought that I didn't have confidence.  A former dance partner once remarked (paraphrased for the general audience) "You have more moxie than any man I know."

"Where did it go?" is still a question I ponder, but mostly, I don't care. What I am passionate about is sustaining it into what feels to me like the next phase of my life--one that promises to be the best ever.

While both personally and professionally my life has been about helping others, I now know that I can't sustain my help for others if I don't take care of my first.  How many coaching clients have I reminded that the airlines always warn us to put the oxygen mask over our own faces before attempting to help children around us. On this turn of the hero's journey, I've gotten this lesson differently than I had before.  Saying "Sorry, I can't help me, I need to take care of myself," really is uncomfortable to even consider, but, whatever comes next, that is a clear boundary that I must enforce.

Digital Detox

There is an expression, maybe from the I Ching, "when the student is ready the teacher will appear." My last post on "Digital Addiction" was hardly stalled in my iPhone, when it seemed that everywhere I turned, I was encountering something about the deleterious effects of digital addiction.  I hadn't even realized that there even was such a thing as digital addiction until about six weeks ago.  Now I am bumping into it everywhere.

First, though, I owe a report about how well I did, or more precisely didn't do, during my effort to walk away from my devices for one day.  I found that every few minutes I would start to do something that involved one or another device. I would catch myself at least half the time, but that suggests that half of the time I mindlessly turned to the radio, iPhone, notebook, or television.  Most of the time, I noticed within seconds, but at 5 p.m., I abandoned the experiment and decided that I would wait until my staycation.  My little experiment has been a good lesson in not being present.

I am now six days into my annual vacation at home, and I realized two things going into my leave. First, I really needed to be off devices more. Second, going cold turkey was not going to work for me since I did want to arrange lunches, coffee, or drinks and other outings with friends, and doing so would require one or more of my devices. So, rather than shutting down all devices for 10 days, I took an approach we might call mini-withdrawals.

With my mini-withdrawals, I have brought more conscious to my use of electronics. That allowed me to actually choose when I wanted/needed to use by devices and be aware of how much of the time I was turning to them out of pure habit...and addiction.  It has also allowed me to choose more consciously what I will watch or listen to.  I quickly discovered that I often had something mindless on in the background just to fill space rather than because I really wanted to watch or listen.

How has this actually worked? When I was cooking for a dinner party Friday night and Saturday, I normally have had NPR, a podcast, Spanish lesson, or audiobook in the background.  I made the decision to cook in silence.  My cooking became a meditation.  I was able to really be present. My guests arrived and I was relaxed and present to them.

This evening I walked about 20 minutes to the hardware store to pick up some things, and again normally, I would have been listening to something.  I made the conscious decision to just leave the iPhone in the charger.  I ended up having a leisurely shopping trip during which I was able to just enjoy looking...and a little buying.

I took a book to read on my commute to a lunchtime concert at the Library of Congress rather than my usual practice of catching up with email and reading The Washington Post on my phone, while listening to podcasts or TuneIn Radio.  I was enjoying the book so much that I just left my phone in my purse until I got home, and when I was present, I decided to have a lingering lunch rather than putting myself on autopilot and jumping on the Metro to return home.

When sitting by the pool yesterday, I didn't check anything on my iPhone, but I do confess to loving the "Ocean Waves" soundtrack in the background while I read.  I was able to actually get into the book I was reading and with which I had been struggling for two weeks while reading a couple paragraphs before checking some device.

While I do find the level of my descension into this addiction distressing, given the number of places I've been bumping into media coverage of the problem, I am not alone.  Last night on the shuttle from the Metro to the Kennedy Center, where we can safely assume everyone is going to enjoy a live performance, a woman was totally freaking out that she'd forgotten her iPhone.  I was glad that I'd decided to turn mine off until I was headed home.  It ended up that I was so relaxed from not looking all evening, that I didn't even look at the phone until I was home.

In the last two weeks, I've discovered a Digital Detox Boot Camp in the jungles of Costa Rica, where they take people's devices and lock them up for a week, while providing lots of physical activity to distract participants during withdrawal.  In the coverage about the event, I learned that the average American looks as his/her smartphone every 4 minutes!  Given that I do often go hours without looking at mine, I felt some righteous relief with that data point.

During a conference that I attended last week, I learned that there is actually a name for what happens to people who spend too much time on their devices: Cognitive Capacity Overload.  The symptoms are the same as ADHD--Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, including inability to focus and really be present to what one is doing.

Just this evening on a Freakonomics Podcast--yes, I am still listening, but I have been much more judicious and have deleted about 3/4 of the podcasts to which I would normally have listened. Anyway, the podcast was exploring the health concerns related to lack of sleep, and you guessed, it all of our screens contribute to difficulty falling asleep and the quality of sleep once we do.

I love my iPhone, and it does provide me with efficiencies and effectiveness that I otherwise couldn't enjoy.  (Thank you, Google Maps.) I am sure even those who will sojourn to Costa Rica for serious cold turkey withdrawal will pick their devices up again when they return. However, I have learned enough from my little experiment into mini-withdrawals to know that I will do them more frequently. The quality of my relaxation and the relaxation in my work is dramatically improved.  And, I am able to embrace that most difficult of spiritual lessons: being present...in the present.

Digital Addiction

(Note: This was written about two weeks ago and has, by an interesting twist of fate, been trapped in my iPhone.)

Recently several articles in the Washington Post have explored various aspects of digital addiction, even reporting on residential treatment programs where people can go for withdrawal from their devices. 

While I am certain that I am not nearly as badly hooked as many around, I have wondered several times in the last month if I might not be falling victim to this disease.  I have already decided that I want to go cold turkey during part of my staycation in early July.  But, even at that I have wondered what exactly does "cold turkey" mean? 

Since I get lost in my closet, I've been quite grateful for having Google Maps facilitate my arrival when and where I attend. If I go on an excursion during my staycation, must I really go back to reading maps, which I really don't do very well? 

If I totally give up electronics, that means I can't do my Spanish lessons which require daily practice to be effective.  Can I do my Spanish lesson once a day?

Can I sync my step- and sleep-tracker each day?  What really are the consequences of not knowing these things, which I cared little about until recently but which now seem indispensable?

Usually during vacations, I really enjoy writing for this blog.  Would it be OK to write a blogpost on one of several devices that I own?

You see the slippery slope upon which I am perched.

Back in the days during which the closest approximation we had to smartphones was a Blackberry, they were jokingly referred to as "crack berries" because even they were as addictive as crack cocaine.  Just the sampling of uses to which I put my iPhone, described above, make it really easy to see how it is easy to slip into this addiction. In and of itself, each use is benign; it is the accumulation of all those helpful apps that threaten addiction. Even as I write this, I am on my way to a Washington Nationals baseball game. Back in the day, like 2010, I would have taken a book or a magazine to read on the commute, and maybe I'd talk to people. Not today.  I love that I can finally have a chance to write, but relent the consequences.

While I've been thinking about this issue for several weeks, it is particularly heavy on me today.  I've been riveted to news coverage about the horrible tragedy in Orlando all afternoon. Wearing my ear buds plugged to NPR as I ran errands and did chores, I've hung on every word. Just before I started writing this post, I'd found myself looking at my phone offering the temptation that a bag of heroine might to a drug addict. 

The line in the sand came when I realized that I'd learned almost nothing...all afternoon. 

(Note: Since starting this post earlier, I've now been to a very exciting baseball game during which my phone remained happily in my purse.)

As I was saying, I came to the realization that while there had been 4 or 5 reporters covering the event, almost nothing new was reported.  So what was the point of hanging on every word, except for serving my addiction.  I do remember a time in the late 90s, though, when I was so disconnected that my editor at Butterworth-Heinemann shared with me a breaking event about Osama bin Laden, and I said, "Who?"  Clearly there is a happy medium between these extremes.

I do know that despite of, or maybe because of, that exciting two-run 9th inning for the Nats, I feel way more relaxed after this three hours than I did after three hours of the continuous news cycle. I take that as good data.  Now I just need to turn that information into wisdom. 

Because of a strange work week, my weekend is Sunday and Monday this week, and while I won't give up my laptop, I plan to abandon my iPhone except for what a phone is supposed to be used for--talking to friends.