Zen Bender
Page 20
As I stood there on the pier, taking in my thoughts and the sea air, I thought back on my journey, my failures, and for the first time, my successes, and I suddenly felt like it was the beginning of everything.
Post-Traumatic Recession Disorder
Shortly after my epiphany on the pier, back in New York, I used my friend Karina’s bathroom. She had Molton Brown hand soap on the sink. I gasped with joy when I saw it. I double-pumped (okay, maybe triple-pumped) and washed my hands, luxuriating in my once-favorite indulgence. Hello, old friend. Oh, how I have missed you, I thought.
Later, I said to her, “Wow, you still use Molton Brown soap?” She looked perplexed. I told her I loved that soap, but I didn’t explain that I used to buy Molton Brown Thai Vert hand soap, too. Up until October 31, 2008.
I never bought it again after squeezing and savoring that final pumped drop out of that last bottle I owned. And it took almost a full decade before I felt comfortable ordering New York magazine, Vanity Fair, and the New York Times again. A full decade. But never again did I buy that soap. There’s a little joy in a pump of Molton Brown at a friend’s house, but to have it in my house seems a jinx—a flashback to a time I’d rather not dwell too much on.
A lot stuck with me from my recessionary measures. Single pumps are still household policy, and I’ll never turn down a free razor or packet of shampoo. I finally recognize all of that behavior: It’s post-traumatic recession disorder. People I have spoken to over the years who got laid off in other businesses have told me that they still feel sad about their former careers, even though they too survived. I still feel sad when I think about what might have been in a career I loved.
I committed to forever living not just within my means, but well below them, not that I was extravagant (save for the soap). I’m still as cheap as I can be. My friend Doug said I’m like a post-war German housewife, always paying cash, detesting credit, and I only buy things on sale. I wear my limited wardrobe until holes emerge. And even then, if I can cover them, I do. I still enact many of my austerity measures. I think I always will. And there’s no shame in that. As per the numerologist, I splurge, but I choose my splurges carefully.
Times had changed.
But I had changed, too.
It took me until 2016 to earn even close to what I was earning on October 31, 2008. That April, after filing taxes, I bought myself a beautiful handbag to mark the occasion. It wasn’t until 2017 that I earned a little more. My shoulders finally dropped, nine years later.
I own a humble but peaceful house in Springs in East Hampton, New York, and I now have a tiny apartment in New York City (tiny being the operative word) below 75th Street, rented literally a decade (to the month, almost the week actually) after I was laid off. Located where I imagined the one on my very first vision board was, but with fewer fancy pillows and less décor.
My motto going forward became “cheap and cheerful,” a sentiment often implied by everyone who either enters my house or my apartment and says, “Nice, this is all you need.” Break that down and it’s a slightly back-handed compliment coming from people with larger homes and fancier apartments, not that anybody ever walks in anywhere and says, “This is so much more than you need.”
The only person who thought the apartment was palatial was my nephew, Andrew, eight at the time he first stayed with me. Loving that I served him Doritos for breakfast, he was contemplating moving in. I said we would need a larger apartment, and he said, “No, this is good.”
My friend Alison came over to my apartment just after I got it and, while I was bracing for a “This is all you need,” she didn’t say that. She said, “I’m impressed. You have two homes. You did it, and I’m so happy for you.” I tried to receive the compliment, but that is always challenging for me. I explained that these two homes combined cost about the same amount monthly as the Harlem condo had, but she persisted in saying I had accomplished something and figured out how to make it work.
I’ll put my lifestyle to date in the win jar, as a whole, but I’m not going to give the Universe the credit for it. Not all of it anyway. Working seven days a week, twelve months a year, launching a business on sweat equity and smarts alone, I’m finally owning that one all for me. Encouragement and a thread of learning from every self-help book I read or wrote, every coach or psychic who made me think, sure, it helped. Reiki, yoga, strength training, and acupuncture—you played your part.
I look back at that time and see, not just overwhelming stress, but also a kindness of strangers (actually friends and family) element to it all that wows me. Generally speaking, people are nice. Many lovely people sprung for a meal, or kept me in good wine, or did photocopying at the office for me, or made a phone call on my behalf. After my experience, I realized that job loss can happen to any of us, and so I make it a point to return the favor when asked.
And frankly, looking outward, helping other people, that’s healing too. And all the wellness and soul-searching can be a cautionary tale. I became a born-again and got preachy each time I read a book or learned a regime or ate a certain way and felt great for five minutes. Spending so much time on all this stuff…fixing and fixing and fixing…makes us a self-centered set of humans.
After my epiphany, was life Easy Street? No. Life will always feel like walking through mud. That’s because life is, generally, hard. It’s great and messy and fun, and full of ups and downs. I don’t want to detract from other people’s struggles with illness or financial hardships or horrible issues—for them it’s much more severe than for me. But even for those of us who have it easier, life is real work. And no psychic or guru will make it that much easier.
Happy-ish
I used to work with a woman a long time ago who, when you said, “How are you?” would always enthusiastically say “Great.” Every time. And you know what I used to think? Bullshit. There’s no way everyone can always be that great. Every. Single. Day. It’s New York. Everyone has something semi-legit to complain about. And non-legit complaining is also fully encouraged and welcome.
Did she just not want to share her mess with me? Or were there people, like this woman, who always had it so great that nothing got them down?
Bottom line: We can’t be happy all the time, but I think we can strive for content. That is not overshooting. Always happy is just not achievable, and that’s okay. Plus, it’s hard work and stressful to have to be so damn happy and meet the pressure of all the experts and such that push for it. And some days, we’re just not our best and we’re never going to be. Or maybe we actually are our best and we just don’t see it. And that is okay too. Best is relative. If we focus on keeping our eyes on our own mat, like they always tell us to do in yoga, and don’t worry about what our neighbor is doing or what our friends are earning or who they’re dating, life won’t always feel so heavy.
One way to do that is to find your speed. I’m working to find mine.
And I try to keep a few more notions top of mind as well:
Try a little acceptance. Ha, ha, ha, I say! I’m terrible at listening to my own advice, but I do try to remind myself that it will all be okay. I will be okay. Trauma notwithstanding, we all will.
When I told Jessica once how so many people said that losing my job would be the best thing that ever happened and asked her how I would know if it was, her response was cuttingly genius. She asked, “Why, are you keeping score?” I do like the freedom of working for myself, but I truly miss Career Number One. And I’m also okay admitting that I’m occasionally still bummed about it all. I feel fine not pretending. Yeah, hello, Instagram and Facebook, I’m talking to you. As such, I disagree with the saying, “Don’t cry over spilt milk.” I say, cry. Then go eat chips. Then make a plan.
Having said all that, I’ve never been a regretful person. I look forward far too much—maybe that’s the producer in me. But I don’t really look back. Overall, I have few regrets. I regret not getting a mo
uth guard when I first was told to do so by a dentist for teeth grinding (which I do even in yoga), and I fully regret that stupid Volkswagen, but honestly, that is it.
I told Dr. Ramani once that I just wanted to get to a point where I wasn’t so stressed-out about everything—money, being successful, body image, worrying about aging parents and worse, worrying about not having aging parents, and worrying about dying alone.
“You’re never not going to stress about all those things,” she said. That was a long time ago, and until this writing, I had forgotten her wisdom. Own your stress. No matter what, the anxiety creeps in. That is an important realization. Anxiety came with age as the stakes of life got higher. Instead of trying to eliminate it with every wild and radical effort, I finally realized just loosening the valve on it was good enough. And knowing it when I saw it helped too.
And engage intelligent healers! Mine are super smart in so many ways, related and unrelated to their fields, that, just like my brainy friends, I learn from and am motivated by their wisdom.
Reflecting on all that I had done on my Zen Bender, I made a mental checklist of what would stay and what would go in an effort to stay calm and ease anxiety going forward: Yoga is a keeper. Acupuncture chills me out. Meditation works (I could do better on that front), and Reiki puts me to sleep. Sleep is good.
As far as the rest of it? It can’t be all-consuming. There is a lot of noise out there. Pull a thread from each book you read or each coach you hire, but don’t lose your ability to check your gut and participate in your own decisions and actions. Listen and filter, though, I acknowledge, the placebo effect is a real thing. If someone believes something is working for them, it sometimes makes it so. That’s because the brain can be convincing. That makes the motivation and action that comes from the healer du jour a worthy piece of wisdom.
Even though I’ve slaughtered a lot of sacred cows (my friend Suzan’s initial observation when she first read this) in these pages, that wasn’t my intention. I still love it all. And there’s a reason the industry for self-help and New Age has exploded. Some of these practices really work. And they can be fun.
Plus, believing is powerful. We all want to believe. And that’s okay, because believing is good, like potato chips, if consumed in moderation.
Dissatisfaction is very raw and bleeds into various areas of life. One big thing I have learned from all this is that, when I was dissatisfied with one element of my life, it quickly spread. And that meant I could see a lot of holes that needed fixing. If I really whittled it down, the disorganized home, the dating struggles, the screenplays-to-be-written, the money, none of those were the real issue. Trying to knock twenty pounds off—that’s what truly bugged the shit out of me all along. I’d like to say I have stopped checking the scale. I haven’t. But I’m a little less hung up on it.
At least I know that I’m a work in progress and I always will be. My trainer, Caroline, tells me almost weekly that I’m very hard on myself. When I tell her that I’m frustrated that this bulge or this ripple won’t go away, she asks, “Can you accept that?” I’d like to say yes, but I probably never will. But I will not take heroic measures anymore to change it.
And one more thing.
My Reiki healer Erin told me that walking is actually a chaining exercise and that it makes sense that I work through junk and clear my head when I walk. She said that walking activates the left side of the brain, which is for logic and problem-solving. Walking is a left-right-left-right movement (like running, stair climbing, and as Erin said, “Even cutting with scissors”) that triggers that thinking. That’s why, when I get all clogged up, I’m unclogged by the end of a walk.
Jessica told me that walking, for me, is meditative, which is why during the times when I walk and walk and walk without missing a day, I lose weight. Because I’m not freaking out, and my body is calm and my mind is still.
Walking, for me, is the single best tool in my arsenal for all of it—thinking, calming down, meditating, getting centered, feeling better about myself. That’s how I process things, by putting one foot in front of the other. It’s the simplest and least expensive form of self-help, too. No coach, book, or chant required. It’s often when I write and figure out solutions to problems I couldn’t solve at the keyboard. That doesn’t mean it’s enough for everybody, but it works for me.
Walking, is, and has been all along, my spiritual seeking. I just forgot for a while and started grabbing at everything else.
Now, every time I walk out on that pier, or along the beach, or at high speed through the streets of New York, I remember what my dad said, his words maybe the most important lesson of my life—that what I was born with was indeed enough.
I am finally just happy I have two arms and two legs.
The Zen Bender Anti-Self-Help Doctrine (My Antidote to Overdosing on Advice, Self-Help, and New Age Fixes)
Plant a vegetable garden or pick vegetables at a farm.
Do yoga, as much for your brain as for your body.
Chase strong, not thin.
Only stress about the actual tangible things that are happening in front of you, not all the hypotheticals swirling in your head.
Be gracious with your words; you don’t have to say out loud every thought that pops into your head.
Don’t compare.
Listen more than you talk.
Be generous with your time.
Take the time to receive what a friend has to offer.
Call, don’t text. Especially your mom.
Know that a bad day can also be a good one.
Get a blowout. There’s very little a visit to the Drybar can’t fix.
(If your pants feel snug, at least your hair will look great.)
Do acupuncture as preventive medicine, not just for an injury.
Volunteer or dedicate time to a cause that’s important to you (a.k.a. stop focusing on you and focus on others).
Read The Confidence Code. It is life-altering.
Find a community or build a community.
Get over yourself.
Acknowledgments
I crowdsource my life. I ask multiple people what they think about almost every decision or situation before settling in on my move. I like to information gather and I like to front-load my stress (pre-stressing, I call it), understanding various outcomes ahead of time. Writing this book was no exception. It took the support of my entire hive, and then some, for me to muster the oomph to put it all on the page and set it free in the book-o-sphere. A heartfelt thanks to all of my encouraging friends for listening and listening and listening, and talking through chapters at great length. But also, thank you for all the cheerleading. On the days when you think you suck (I have many), call my friends. Their confidence in me is heartwarming.
To everybody I’ve ever written for, edited for, and collaborated with, thank you for all that you taught me. I have learned some things, and changed some things, thanks to your wisdom. What, in many cases, started out as work evolved into cherished friendships.
Without an office full of co-workers, we writers have to form a virtual one—calling on each other for proofreads, contract issues, creative conundrums, and just general company. At no time was this more critical and needed than in the writing of this book. Chief among my virtual office mates, my Head Virtual Office Mate, is fellow writer and valued friend Sherri Rifkin, whose early reads and repeated edits, steady encouragement, pep talks, and advice were the perfect antidote for writer’s stress and insecurity. Focus and finish.
And to Suzan Colon for the mother of all saves. I thank you for your wisdom and edits, your patience and prodding, and your oh-so-genius suggestion for a way to bring it all home, especially since you were generously offering up your time while you were on a writing deadline of your own. It was critical and appreciated.
And thank you both for our Wagamama Summits. They save me.
Sandra Moreno, my fellow empire builder and friend, for plotting, planning, suggesting, reading, and promoting. Thank you for sparing your time and patience.
In the women-helping-women department, a sincere thanks to Lucy Fato and Karina Byrne, whose encouragement and generosity are mind-blowing. Thank you both for every kind gesture that probably felt regular and small to you but was enormous to me. I worship you both.
And to my Official Wellness Team: Alexis Arvidson and Erin Tschantret, I love your wisdom, your healing powers, your calm demeanor, and just generally spending time with each of you. And Elizabeth Dietz, thank you for reminding me to think big at a key point in time. Caroline Cashin, thanks for kicking my butt. And Lisa Zaloga, thanks for keeping me grounded. To my Unofficial Wellness Team and Chicks Who Farm, Lori Spechler and Martha McCully, for sanity checks, walks, yoga, and sharing the supreme gratification of digging potatoes from the ground or finding a rogue radicchio in the rough.
Diana Nuhn: You are magic. You make magic. I thank you for your guidance on the most important piece of the equation.
To Erik Jackson, for creative consultation and writing pep talks over dumplings. To Jennifer Wright and Samantha Wright for some painfully last-minute, frantic (albeit oceanside) edits, and a general enthusiasm for, and enormous contribution to, my work.
And, since every drop of water makes a pond, not one word I’ve ever written would sound right if not for all that I learned from a long list of writing teachers, especially Jennifer Belle. She, along with an A-team writing workshop made up of Kathryn Kellinger, Michael Sears, and Desiree Rhine, helped with the foundation of this book without even knowing it.
Maura Teitelbaum, my agent throughout my entire decade-long Zen Bender, I thank you. You are a shark and a sheer force.