You may recognize this as "Cottages at CordeVille" by Vincent Van Gogh but not many do. This has long been considered one of his most striking and powerful paintings by those who claim to know. What I find more important is many who don't "know" but rather insist if you take the time to "see" what the picture is saying you'll realize just how powerful it can be.
Not understood by many is the fact this was his first work after a stint in the looney bin. Please don't go all PC on me here. I'm referring to what passed for mental health treatment at a time where all the patients were systematically thrown in together and experimented on. It was only if you had the resources to afford a private room and Dr. it did any good at all. A stint he was glad to take as many of his problems had overwhelmed him and on the urging of many of his friends he did so. He left the asylum, settled here and was so overcome at it's charm and beauty, put oil to canvas and breathed life to it. You see what looks like a childs picture in crayon is really a living expression of the movement of life, nature, wind, structures and hills. This is not a case of life encapsulated in a frame but rather a celebration of it's eternal change, growth and LIVING!!!
This struck me as once again I found an interesting email in my "You've Got Mail!" box yesterday. It pointed out how our bodies hormones are affected much greater than thought by how we react to things that happen to us. What you may not know is estrogen is made by testosterone in both men and women. What I didn't know is that when you trigger your fight/flight instincts how you react to that will send your testosterone levels sinking or rising. If you tend to want to retreat into your shell, hide, avoid or otherwise side step dealing with a crucial issue or circumstance your body says "Okay! Testosterone - go to sleep for awhile. Estrogen you too." Now think about that for a minute. Testosterone is not just for men being aggressive stalkers looking for victims to challenge. Most important is the rush of insight, heightened brain activity looking for clues and answers to those clues. Directing actions to be taken to resolve them in the best way possible is what testosterone signals to your whole body. It's aggressiveness is used all throughout our bodies to focus, guide and strengthen wherever it's necessary. In other words by facing it and wanting to deal with it in the moment you tell your body, your hormones and your brain to stop fooling around and get cracking!And guess what? It really does just that!
When you choose to hide, retreat to your shell, or otherwise try to in essence run from facing or dealing with that confrontation you are telling your hormones to retreat, your brain to stop working and your adrenaline to find you some place to run and hide until the storm has passed. The longer you remain is a "safe" place the more your body stunts your capacity to find ways to deal with it, learn from it or much less do something to make it stop. And that's why it's so crucial you deal with all those fears you face after a heart attack for what they are. In your fear of it happening again you are telling your body in the only way it knows how to find a way to make it happen and to use all it's resources in extremis to do so. In effect you are using your emergency ration of adrenal glands, adrenaline and muscle stores to bring about the very thing you fear the most! The tools that stress your body the most you're using to try and recover. Not happening!
However once you face those fears, accept you have them and begin to explore ways to put them to rest all those emergency stressors relax, your hormones come back to the fore and your brain begins to function once more at it's fullest potential. Now let me make one thing clear here. It's not that victims of a heart attack are the only ones subject to this. In fact over the last few years the studies have focused on what it is that keeps shy people shy. What makes social anxiety so intense and so hard to overcome? What they found was shy or introverted people have less testosterone than anyone else. It's that their chosen behavior restricts it's flow and use. When they learn to overcome and conquer the limitations they have put on themselves those hormones come bubbling up as strong and useful as it does for any one else. And since those hormones have in a sense been on hold for so long it can also be a magical discovery once their body and mind begin to function as it was intended. Each step they take, each choice they make, each action on those choices and each continued building on those steps they insure it will continue.
For those of us with a heart attack in our past that means each step we take forward to move beyond those fears and do the exercises, change the diet and learn new ways to approach our lives will flush the stressors and contaniments from our bodies and allow the healthy ones intended to heal, recover and build to come forth at full strength. When they tell you your way of thinking affects your body they had clues but didn't know in what specific ways it occurred. Many of their guesses have been confirmed in every single study done in the last 20 years. They are digging deeper and finding more answers all the time as to the actual mechanics involved. The choice is left to us however. Do we carry the seeds of our destruction around not in the risky behaviors like jumping off a cliff entails or drinking ourselves into insensibility but rather in the choice to seek the safest place to be every moment? Then there's the constant barrage of information and events that tell us we're doing the right thing by being careful, being smart, etc. that puts us in more danger than if we just stood up, faced it and walked the walk.
You see the more aggressive you are at seeking answers and solutions the more your body responds by generating the tools it needs to succeed. To build your inner and outer strength for more, longer and in a lasting way than anyone believed possible. However the more you accept the excuse this is the time to take it slow, check out alternatives, investigate all the different options and weight them carefully the more you risk a return visit to the emergency room if not the funeral home. And all that happens just by doing everything you can to stay in your comfort zone. Making excuses like I'm not ready, I can't do that yet, or I'm not strong enough simply signals your body to slow down, put your mind and hormones on idle because there's nothing happening here anytime soon. Trust me I know this place VERY WELL and it took me enormous amounts of energy to dig myself out. Far more than if I had just dealt with them one at a time as I conquered one and moved to the next.
I faced being unable to do some jobs I loved because of the literal dangers they entailed. However the more aggressive I was in seeking out other challenges, jobs I didn't like but got me out, moving, doing and meeting people made me feel better. And I'm not just talking about feeling better physically. I mean my mind was clearer, I started picking up on things I hadn't before and developing a great curiosity about other places and ways doing this job gave me freedom to explore. And that's where things finally started coming together. Each step taken made it easier to take the next. But first I had to take that one step.And then to be thrust into a position where I was dealing face to face with 300 to 400 people a day many of whom are complete strangers, this is not what an original wall flower and shy person par excellence describes as his optimum choice. However I did learn to overcome many anxieties and fears by doing so. The confidence I feel to walk up and talk to anyone at anytime used to amaze me before. However it's gotten to be so second nature now I hardly think about it all.
So what is it that's holding you back? If you keep saying you don't know what to do, don't like the people there or are embarrassed about how you look, your limitations, your self image, whatever, you'll never know what you're missing. If you worry about what the neighbors will think if they see you walking around the neighbor hood for the first time since they moved there, so what? Isn't that the perfect excuse to say "HI!"? Introduce yourself. Meet them and get to know who THEY are. And you know what? All of a sudden they aren't strangers anymore but friends. Friends with a warm welcome and hello when they see you. Friends willing to get to know you and maybe drop by for a visit. Sure there's the curmudgeons on every street and every apartment building. Now you know who they are and will often provide funny stories to talk about with your new friends as you compare notes. And isn't that a lot better than being alone amidst so many?
Look we all know how easy it is to fall into the trap of playing catch up for every good and proper reason in the world. When you play with your hobbies to bide your time until the "right" moment, opportunity or challenge comes along, you'll continue to live a stunted existence. Sure it's far easier and more fun to work on building that layout for your model train you've been putting off. Working on refinishing the furniture. Painting the rooms and redoing the floors the way you've wanted. Catching up on some classes you've been meaning to take. These are all valid in their own way. But your body and your mind know the truth. They are excuses for not living your life. For not taking that risk being out there and active can mean.
Does a baby know more about living than you do? At least when a baby is learning to walk and falls down, no matter how much it scares and hurts them, they get back up and try it until they succeed. Why? Because life over there looks like it would be a lot more fun than here. How do I get there the fastest when I want to go? All those giants around me do that upright thing. Why can't I do that? This knees and hands stuff is getting old because once I get there I have to stop, see if I like it there and if I don't I've got to start all over at the next spot. How annoying. But if I do that upright thing I can get over there, investigate and move on without all that extra up and down stuff. Works for me! Now how do I figure this out?
So how does that apply after a heart attack? Stop crawling everywhere and start walking. Just because you fell down, got hurt and now you're afraid it might happen again doesn't mean you can't. Like my Doctor said "How well and how much you do after this is up to you. The more you do, the more you exercise and the more you get out, the faster your recovery, the stronger you'll be and you can be in better shape overall than you've been in a very long time."
Yes sir, one step at a time but I will make one step every day. Something that I can sit down that night and say this is what I did to move forward today. This is the step I took today that's going to get me out of where I am now and moving forward to where I want to go. Yes I'm scared. Yes I'm moving in unknown territory. Yes this is new to me. But you know what? I did something today that's going to change that. No one can hold me back and that includes me!
Like Van Gogh I'm going to enjoy that flow of life in every part of my being. The power, the joy and sheer fun of it's constant discovery will be mine!
This is a good post and inspiring. Also very interesting about the hormones...I didn't know that but it makes a lot of sense.
ReplyDeleteLike I said before, I understand your frustration, but people have to find it within themselves to change. You can't start a fire by wishing sticks to magically ignite, neither can you talk or prod someone into changing. Too bad, huh? It would be so much easier that way sometimes for both parties involved. But then, what would they learn? To be reliant on you instead of discovering their own inner strength. :)