Mindfulness

I mentioned mindfulness in an earlier post. I truly believe that mindfulness is key to my mental health. Mindfulness is not just a key practice in my spirituality but also in the Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) that I am working on.

So what is mindfulness? Mindfulness is very simply the practice of being fully present in the present moment. You may have heard the saying that depression arises from worrying about the past and anxiety arises from worrying about the future. If you suffer from either or both of these then you probably know the relief you feel when you are so engaged in some activity that your mind must focus on the present, and for even a moment you are given a reprieve from thinking about your past or future. For me, when I play basketball, which I used to do a lot more than I currently do, I get so focused on the game and what I am doing that I forget about everything else. Nowadays a really good book can also give me that bit of escape from my own worries.

Most of the time, however, we do not usually have the sort of time to escape from life either through a good book or a basketball game. We have things we need to get done, life events and obligations that must be addressed. So how can we stay grounded in the present moment so that we do not become overwhelmed by thoughts about the past and future? I will put forth a few practices that I use and that you might try. 

The most basic mindfulness practice that is taught and is always available is paying attention to your own breath. Paying attention to your breath does not mean changing how you are breathing, but simply recognizing each breath that you take. Feeling each breath come into your body and then as it leaves your body. You might focus on a place in your body where you feel that breath, as it passes your nostrils or as it fills your chest. There is no need to count the breaths. Just take a moment to close your eyes and pay attention to your breath. Feel each one arise, feel it enter your body, and feel it leave your body. Do this for one minute.

Once you are practiced at paying attention to your breath like this for a minute or more, you might look into meditation. A simple meditation is simply being in a comfortable position and paying attention to your breath as you just did. You need not worry about "emptying your mind" or "thinking about nothing". Thoughts will arise, but when your focus is on your next breath, they will quickly and quietly fade into the background.

There is another skill I use that does involve changing up how you are breathing. With this one I concentrate on inhaling for four counts and exhaling for six counts. It feels slightly uncomfortable to exhale for longer than I inhale and takes a bit of effort, that extra bit of focus that keeps me grounded in the present moment. A minute or two of this is usually enough for those negative thoughts that I had been thinking to fade into the background.

Another activity I like to use is to give my brain a challenging task. Perhaps it is multiplying two three-digit numbers in my head. I really like those mindfulness coloring books, the ones with mandalas or animals or scenery made up of little geometric shapes. I use my left hand, which is my off hand, to color in the shapes. It takes concentration. Another thing you might try if you do not have a coloring book in front of you but have some other printed material at hand is to fill in all the o's and g's and parts of other letters where a space is enclosed by the letter.

One final skill that helps me focus and is quite relaxing is to do muscle relaxation. Starting with my feet I tense up muscles for several counts and then allow them to relax. Once I have moved all the way up to my head I feel more grounded and relatively more relaxed. You begin this by scrunching up your toes and holding it for several seconds and then allow those muscles to relax. Then try and tense your calf muscles and allow those to relax. Then your thighs, your butt, your abdomen, your hands, biceps, shoulders, neck, mouth (smile really big and then relax!), and finally scrunch up your forehead and let that relax.

Each of these skills is usually readily available and can bring you back to the present moment when worry, either about the future or the past, begins to creep up.

Check on Your Managers! We are Not Okay!

In dealing with my current issues I have had to turn to my social support system, the friends and family who love me and care about me. I can barely get out of bed in the morning let alone schedule doctor's appointments and job interviews and get myself to therapy. I've been really encouraged, though, by the people who have reached out, and I want to turn a sad story into a success story.

As I think I this support system what stands out is how much I have isolated myself over the past several years. It certainly is no coincidence that this corresponds to the Covid pandemic and working from home. However, I think it began even earlier when I moved into a management role. I feel like the manager role can intrinsically be a lonely one if measures are not taken. As I said in an earlier post, I believe the measures are there in work I have already done in therapy and in DBT, but they can be easily forgotten if not regularly practiced. I intend to write more here about those DBT skills and how they relate to work in order to do my own practice of them and maybe to help some others out there.

I was thinking on how I have not made new friends in several years. When I was out drinking and carousing with my engineering peers, it was easier to get past my own social anxiety, have fun, and make friends. Some of those friendships even stuck. When I moved into a management role, though, I certainly was not going to do any carousing, and I really limited how much drinking I would do, already knowing my propensity to overindulge at times. I did not want anyone I supported to see me inebriated. It became even more difficult when I gave up drinking as I could not get past the social anxiety enough to open up to people. 

Now I know all other managers out there are not depressive alcoholics with severe social anxiety, but I do believe that in that manager role you have fewer work peers and those peers you do have are incredibly busy. I think back on the halcyon days of playing foosball or ping-pong at work! Now, no one has that kind of time anymore even when we were still all in the office. I regret now not reaching out to my manager peers at Nordstrom socially more.

I will also say, it was nice, especially in an environment where I was getting no feedback back from my boss, to hear from someone I was supporting as a manager, "Hey, I know it can be a rough job, but I think you're doing a great job." My team and those people I worked with every day - those are the people who knew what kind of job I did and that feedback was very motivating, inspiring. 

So, today's lesson is if your manager is doing a good job, let them know it. It can otherwise be a very thankless job at times. Despite the provocative title, your manager is probably really okay but will appreciate it nonetheless.

Seen Better Days

**** Trigger Warning for Suicidal Ideation ****

I'm back. It's been a bit of a long layoff for me from writing. I want to dive right back in, and I really want to make better use of my blogs and hopefully get to some interesting things, but for the moment, I need to get this out of the way so that you all have some context of where I am.

When we last talked I was probably still gainfully employed by Nordstrom. Apparently more for my gain than for theirs because I was let go the day after Florida got clobbered with Hurricane Ian. I think that maybe I will expand on that a bit further later. In fact, I believe I already have something written out that I was waiting to post. Technically, my last day is November first, and I would rather not jeopardize the last few days I have on the payroll.

So, being in a hurricane (okay, technically it was just a tropical storm at that point when it passed directly over Cape Canaveral with its 60mph+ sustained winds) was one of the least exciting things to happen in the past month. I created a little tempest of my very own. Looking back now I can say that I lost track of the things that are really important and forgot a lot of the therapy that had helped me so much over the previous two years. I only saw myself.

I would love to apologize to each and every person that I know and especially the ones I have hurt. Having a major depressive disorder and being an alcoholic are not things that people should need to apologize for any more than people getting cancer. However, even people with cancer can, and do, make hurtful decisions to others and for those decisions I consciously and willfully made that hurt others, I will apologize for and make amends.

First of all, I am safe now. As safe as anyone else who needs to drive the streets and highways of the Denver metro area. Secondly, I had another suicide attempt. I won't go into details now. Was it serious? I didn't hurl myself in front of a train, but I wanted to die. I was frustrated at just how difficult it was. I was also very, very drunk.

There was a jug of wine in our outside refrigerator that had been there for a very long time. Several years I think. I had been eyeing it. I knew, I knew, I knew, that if I tapped into that in the time that I did with Jen out of town and feeling the way that I did about my life, there would be a very good chance that I would not come out of it alive. And then I poured myself a drink from it.

To be frank, I wanted people at Nordstrom who had made the decision to let me go to hurt. That's why I did what I did. There are other factors that made me not happy with life, primarily generalized depression. I want to apologize to those people at Nordstrom, but again, I'm not going to apologize for being sick. There were things before that I wish had gone different and I apologize for not speaking up about that. I hope, though, that there is some sort of impression that I left with them and with my friends in the Thrive ERG that can help make a difference in the lives of Nordstrom employees who suffer from mental health issues. Erik Nordstrom, if you are reading (because that's what CEO's do. They read personal blogs all day.), please help lead the charge on improving the mental health of your employees!

I'm not living at home. Jen needs her space to sort through being hurt by me, by those conscious decisions I made as well as those depression made for me, as do I for myself to get better. My brother has been awesome in hosting me and in balancing my need to get out and be engaged in life and work as well as letting me convalesce.

I'm in an outpatient treatment for mental/behavioral health now. I've been through this three times already, and my very first night of this go-round I was just amazed at all the stuff that I had learned previously but had neglected to continue practicing. Like going to the gym for our physical health (something I need to start doing again!), we need to be practicing and exercising our mental health on a regular basis.

I'm writing this on Wednesday 10/26, and I am probably going to save publishing it until Monday 10/31 or Tuesday 11/1. I have an interview that I did with Amazon Web Services and the decision is set to be made next Monday. I would not want this post to affect that either way. And I suppose if I wait until 11/1 then Nordstrom can't let me go for cause either. It's sort of shitty that I have to hold my tongue on the internet for those reasons, but this is the age we live in.

--- Writing again later ---

I got too close to a good friend and ended up ruining that friendship and endangering my marriage. People have asked why. The truth is I don't know. I don't have a good answer for Jen nor anyone else. The only other thing that I want to say on the subject is that I miss my friend, very much, but I know she wants the best for me. What is best for me right now is to concentrate on my marriage. I also want to apologize for breaking my promise to her that I wouldn't hurt myself while she was out of the country. What can I say? I'm a liar.

I've hurt Jen too many times. She deserves better. She deserves someone who always puts her first and then her boys. I haven't done that. Of course I want the best for her, and I thought I could give that. But I have been selfish. I put myself ahead of her and at times put my job ahead of her. And I am so, so sorry for that. I hope she will want to keep me in her life forever. 

I did not get the AWS job. I am okay with that. It was not the right job for me, though I did all I could given the circumstances to come away with that job offer. I have several better things in the works. One of them is going to find out that I am the perfect fit for them.  

There are better days ahead. 

Pros and Cons

I wrote the following as a LinkedIn Article, but I think the idea serves for anyone who uses lists of pros and cons to make a decision.

Yesterday I needed to work through one of those tough managerial decisions that occasionally come up. As an engineering manager most of the managerial decisions are relatively easy to make. There are Nordstrom engineering standards, compliance standards, and many best practices for most of what the developers do. The most difficult part of those decisions is really just keeping up with the standards and practices.

The people management decisions are made using a mix of sympathy or empathy given the situation, past experience, and for me, having a background in psychology. Some of that can be learned, but I think the key is empathy: Put yourself into the position of the employee you are supporting and ask yourself how you would like to be treated in that situation.

I'm going astray from my purpose for writing this, which concerns making those difficult decisions as a manager. I've learned a practice that you all are probably familiar with to help make decisions like these, though with an added element: a Pros and Cons list.

Typically when we use a list of Pros and Cons to making the decision, we use the viewpoint of making a change in the status quo and the effects, positive and negative, that change has on our situation. What we don't typically do is also evaluate not making a change or even not making a decision at all and leaving the status quo. Adding that element to this practice has made creating a Pros and Cons list much more valuable to me in decision making.

I'll use a personal decision rather than a managerial decision as an example: Having bought our condo in Cape Canaveral, I was weighing driving my car to have and use down there versus continuing to Uber to and from the airport there or renting a car when we are there. I made a Pros and Cons list beginning with the positives and negatives of having a car in Florida, including the initial act of driving it down there. On the negative side, it was a very long drive down there. On the positive side, that drive down got me an opportunity to see a good deal of country I haven't seen or don't often see including seeing my cousin in Nashville. (It also meant seeing a lot of Kansas, which I'm not sure quite fit into the assets column.) On the plus side, we would save money. Even renting monthly parking down there, with Jen being an airline employee, was cheaper than a one-way Uber from the Orlando airport to Cape Canaveral. On the negative side it left us with one fewer car here in Colorado, particularly a car for the snow, as we would just have the Rogue and the Camaro.

That's how we all typically do a Pros and Cons list. Then, though, I added the additional perspective of what were the advantages and disadvantages to NOT driving my car down. Some of these were merely the opposite of the first list. We would spend more money when we went to Florida Ubering or renting a car. I would not get to need to make a long drive, but I would also not get to see the middle of Kansas. Then a thought struck me: by leaving the car in Colorado it wouldn't be subject to the salt air of Florida and save some life of the car. Being exposed to salt air is really a negative of taking the car down, but I hadn't thought of it at the time. The different perspective brought that out. Maybe it was that I was geared to see the benefits of a situation more than seeing the disadvantages. Sometimes having that different perspective can help you see that there are more disadvantages to a change or advantages to not making a change than you saw at first. Or perhaps vice-versa if you are more inclined to see the negatives in a situation. 

Ultimately I chose to make the drive down and leave the car. I could always change my mind later and drive back to see how Kansas had progressed in the interim. I'm happy to say that so far the decision to take the car down has been a good one.

There are a lot of managerial decisions I could use the practice on as well. Is this employee best to work on this new system or better off where they are? Does it make sense to update this version of the database now or leave it as is? Should we deploy this new software version in this sprint or do more testing? Put yourself into each situation you are considering and make a list of positives and negatives for each situation in order to gain perspective on your decision.

Man's Search for Meaning

 I spent last weekend in the hospital, a psychiatric center to be more precise, for "suicidal ideation". First of all, I'm okay, am back home, and am in an intensive outpatient program getting the help I need. In the words of Robin Williams playing the role of John Keating in "Dead Poets Society", let me dispel a few rumors so they don't fester into facts. (Not that I think there are rumors flying about, but I just like the opportunity to quote that movie.) I did not hurt myself nor anyone else. I did not attempt to hurt myself nor anyone else. I was severely depressed exacerbated by drinking too much the night before. I did not know what to do and Jen did not know what to do, so I asked her to take me to the Emergency Room. No psychotic break, no craziness per se, just overwhelming depression, and I knew I needed professional help.

I'm afraid to post this anywhere. I am afraid of what my family will think. This isn't the first time my close family has witnessed this struggle with me, but mostly they are much further away now. I am afraid of what friends and acquaintances will think. I've burned or singed a number of friendships in the past by throwing alcohol on smoldering depression. I'm afraid of what of what my coworkers will think, particularly those I support as a manager. Coincidentally, or perhaps not so coincidentally, last Thursday I attended a meeting through Nordstrom keynoted by the CEO of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Dan Gillison. The idea was that though there is still a strong stigma with mental health, we need to provide a work environment where it is safe to admit you live with a mental illness, whether it is the employee themselves or someone they care for. I'm also looking at the "Nordstrom Competencies" and smack in the middle are two: "Has Courage" and "Develops People". So I think it is important to admit that I live with chronic depression.

While I am not ready to discuss details of my own experiences, including those of the last week, I want to turn this into something ultimately positive. I know people are struggling with working at home, maybe with a job change, maybe just not being able to see friends and family, maybe with this upcoming election that seems to have everyone depressed. Looking back now I realize what a dark place I was in, but it was as if someone just gradually dimmed the lights over the past six or seven months since the Covid lockdowns began. If you are in a similar place I encourage you to reach out to family, friends, or a crisis hotline. I have to admit I've used those in the past, and the people on the other side of the line are very good at just listening.

I'm sorry. I am not apologizing that I have this disease or that I ended up in the hospital because of it. I am sorry because I knew I had a problem, and I thought I could deal with it on my own. I thought I was better than every other person that has had to deal with depression and alcoholism, and that wasn't fair to my wife, to my family, to the friends I lost, to the friends that stuck by me, and to my work. I am fortunate and glad I have people who do stick by me and glad I have the means to fight to get better. There are people out there who don't. Send up a prayer for them.