Why Do We Get Sick? Or Why Did I?
Thoughts & Intuitions from My Week in Bed
Reasons like stressing and not doing anything about it, even though I teach other people to recognize how they are feeling, how to self-regulate. I let those stress levels rise and pushed myself, insisted on working myself harder, meaner, longer even when all I talk about some days is kindness. I didn't listen to my Self or my Parts. I barreled into some kind of viral nightmare, and now I'm suffering. Moment of recognition! Put my hand on my heart and offer compassionate apologies to my Self and all my Parts.
What is redeemable? What can I learn from this?
I am a human being, and being is the core of my existence. When my being isn't living in a state of calm, I need to reset it. I check in with my antidotes…
The Big 10 Life Fixers: Sleep, nature, exercise, meditation/prayer, healthy food, connecting with friends & family, music/dance, making art, journaling and making meaning through purpose (like volunteering or political action).
Typically these all work in my life to keep me in a regulated calm state, but too much or not enough of any of these can also pull me into a dysregulated state. “When I stop listening to my body” is a phrase a lot of people use. As an autistic person, I have a hard time feeling, hearing, understanding my body. I have to literally make time to check in every day. Tracking the nervous system is a skill. I’ve learned to build these check-ins into my life.
Before bed and upon rising I will check in with my Self and my Parts. I journal to do this, or meditate (mostly after exercise, another way to check in with my body).
What I won't do is check the news. I check in on issues I want to be informed about. I set google or talkwalker alerts. I also read Jessica Valenti's Abortion Every Day, and/or The Intercept, MondoWeiss, and Al Jazeera, but only when I have the bandwidth. That means I have to want to interact with the news: write a poem or a letter to Congress. If the news doesn’t energize me, I stop.
Learned Helplessness is a big part of our human trauma response. Governments want the people traumatized - we are easier to manipulate this way. I become apathetic if I begin to despair, so I have to shift into responding. This takes energy. I try never to check news after dark for this reason.
While my life was revving up ten days ago (before I got sick) I started to ignore all this. I skipped meditations, exercised every other day, and started to obsess on the news. My sleep went haywire. I could feel a low level panic setting in. And I did nothing to stop this.
Getting sick insisted I work with my Inner Taskmaster/WhipCracker to heal the Parts they are protecting. I got to know Parts who don't want me to rest. I discovered more about how I'm driven, and how I have held core beliefs that say "you can't reach out for help" and "you must do everything all by yourself." These are trauma responses we can release to increase our capacity to reach out and get the help we need and deserve.
Healing is a process. I welcome these lessons. I am grateful to everyone who helped me this week. It's good to know I’m not, and we’re not, alone.
artwork by Scott Sherman at ScottShermanStudio on Instagram
Writing Prompt:
Craft for CHARACTER - Beyond answering lots of questions in the voice of your character, what else can you do to make your characters feel round and real?
Give them contradictions. What are their conflicting values? Is there a thief with a soft heart? Is there a tough gym teacher who lets a runaway sleep in her den? How can your characters surprise us? Think about their internal conflicts.
Of course you are giving your characters 3 levels of conflict, right? Internal within themself; interpersonal, between them and someone else; and extrapersonal, between them and the world/social/cultural stew they live in.
Inner conflict tends to point toward their conflicting contradicting values. Someone who values family and tradition but wants to feel desirable or young again might still buy that motorbike. Someone who values honesty and friendship might have to lie to help that friend.
Let them tell you about how they see the world you are creating. Give them opinions. Even if they don't speak much in the work itself, let them talk to you. Or make sure you can understand their point of view.
Make sure they are active. What do they want and what are they willing to do to get it? Make a LIST. Look at VERBS.
Also LIST lots of things they might do in the course of a day. How do they live moment to moment? What sort of energy do they have? How do they interact with other people? A woman I know, when asked how she is, always says, "just peachy!" But her tone admits, she hates her life.
Think about their journey. You want them to go from A to ?. Define those terms. Have a journey in mind. From silent to outspoken. From buttoned-up academic to drug-addled. From bohemian to born-again. Find the journey, the road toward transformation. If you know where you want them to end up, then start them at the opposite of that.
Making decisions is not hard if you can trust yourself. Listen to the character, and you only have to trust the character. Then fill in the blanks.
Let them have their lives. You might never get to use the backstories, but it's important to know them. (This is why the questions for character are so helpful. You do the questions for character, right?)
Announcements:
In the Brave Space community, I’d love to add your announcements or events. Just let me know. Either post a comment with a link or send me an email. This is read in 10 countries by almost 700 people! Please check for what your community members are doing! Support is important!
IN NYC, Tuesday June 25th at 7pm, my newest play, WINNERS, has seats available at The Tank for PrideFest! If you want a discount, I gotcha that too! $10 off with the code AUTIEPRIDE at checkout. TICKETS at this link! Everyone who comes to the show is invited to the all-you-can-eat afterparty at The Tailor’s Public House. I hope you will join me!
This Sunday/Monday, the amazing Grace Phelan will appear in The Manna-Hatta Project Sunday, June 23, 7pm show: Governors Island, near Castle Williams
Monday, June 24, 7pm show: Chess on the Boardwalk, 328 Albany Street (2 blocks below World Trade Center memorial and Brookfield Place) For more information and to RSVP, CLICK HERE
June 27th - 30th, you can see the most wonderful Michael Lopetrone appearing in Meet You Downstairs at Hudson Guild. AEA showcase, actors get in free.
Also June 27th, Swearing in English by the wildly, good-way strange Ema Zivcovic, in the Ars Nova Ant Festival!
Deadline June 30th! Submit an application for IRONS IN THE FIRE, a paid opportunity for a year-round reading series of new plays in development at Fault Line Theatre
Deadline July 3rd! Experiments in Opera is looking for writers! More Here And check out their new work “Five Ways to Die,” opening June 27th at HERE.
Deadline July 16th! The Civilians’ R&D Group includes theater artists from various disciplines exploring strategies for making theater from their own creative investigations… apply here: paid opportunity
If you’re in Asheville, NC, my short piece, “Different.” will be performed in the Different Strokes Performing Arts Festival, June 20-23rd.
Deadline August 15th! The International Human Rights Art Festival seeks performance work. Submit Here
Brave Schedule:
For the week of 6/24 - 6/28/24 Brave Space is on hiatus For the week of 7/1 - 7/5/24 7/1 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space 7/2 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space 7/2 Tuesday 7pm ET Adv. Brave Group Coaching 7/3 Wednesday 11am ET Adv. Brave Group Coaching 7/3 Wednesday 7pm ET Brave Space for All Humans 7/4 Thursday NO Brave Space 7/5 Friday NO Brave Space For the week of 7/8 - 7/12/24 7/8 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space 7/9 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space 7/9 Tuesday 7pm ET Adv. Brave Group Coaching 7/10 Wednesday 11am ET Adv. Brave Group Coaching 7/11 Thursday 11am Brave Space w/workshop 7/11 Thursday 7pm ET Brave Space for All Humans 7/12 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space