Feelin' Groovy

Generally, I will only post in here on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays, but I'm feeling this today, so here goes!

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Yeah, I am stealing from Paul Simon, the songwriter, for my title today. I have been reflecting on the posts I write on this blog, and it occurred to me I am falling into one of the stereotypes about someone with schizoaffective: that we "struggle" all the time. I know I don't. I know many of my friends don't. In fact, I am part of a writing group with other diagnosed people, and the instructor once confessed, after she got to know us, that before she met with us she thought it would be something like "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Instead, she said, it was just like anywhere else—just people with their usual joys and foibles.

I am well aware that there are plenty of people with mental illness I don't see because they are shut-ins for one reason or another. And I can personally attest to the pain so-called mental illness can cause a person and their loved ones. So, it's not easy. But when I am around other people with mental illness, we don't seem any more "struggling" than neurotypicals. Yes, there are certain emphases that are different and certain attitudes and so on that are different, but we're basically just people, like any other. 

I don't know what "happiness" is. It's a weird concept when you think about it. I mean, we eat, we sleep, we socialize, we work. What is this happiness? Here, I am just going to use the word strategically. It simply refers to generally feeling good while going through my day. That's the best I can do, so it will have to do.

Frankly, I have felt good, for the most part, since about June of 2020, around the time I started this blog. Things got a little iffy in August and again in January for complicated reasons, but I have generally done really well. 

Should I go into what has helped me? I guess I will, but with a caveat. I engage in some pretty austere practices that are not for everyone. I certainly don't recommend anyone copy what I do. We all have to find our own way. But I will share what I did before and after June of 2020 that has seemed to help me.

Beginning in the summer of 2019, I picked up my meditation to twice a day, about 40-50 minutes per sitting. What I know this did for me is organize my day around a schedule. That's not minor. I also work part-time, so I was sure to schedule in my meditation. For some people, meditation, particularly long stretches of meditation, are not a good idea. They can aggravate certain conditions. For me, personally, it works.

Is there something in the meditation itself that helps? My guess is "yes," but it's hard to put my finger on. My meditation is zazen—just sitting—and comes out of the Zen tradition. My teacher's teacher was, in essence, a missionary from Japan. According to this tradition, zazen is useless because it can get you nowhere in terms of the Whole. From an Absolute perspective, one having to do not with our human evaluation of the world but the world as it is without positing ourselves as the center, there is no where to get to. However, Zen also recognizes the truth of the relative world—the world of our concepts, evaluations, and discriminations. It is from this world I can say zazen has probably helped me immensely.

I can't be sure, of course. All sorts of factors go into why we feel the way we do. But something happened, something clicked after a year of these twice daily sittings. I learned it from my writing, which is often the case. I found myself writing the words, "My perceptions have changed." I was startled to see this—it was as if I channeled another level of reality. This isn't unusual. A lot of songwriters and writers feel as if the words do not come from "inside," but from the outside, somewhere, whether it be the muses or the unfolding of tradition or whatever.

At any rate, I looked at this sentence. I came to realize some subtle shift had occurred, and I don't know what it was. I still don't. But things started happening. I had been drinking a few too many beers early during the pandemic, and I stopped that completely. I now drink a little socially. And then I just decided to lose weight. I had been on a medication that caused me to gain 100 pounds—psychiatric meds are awful for weight gain. I easily switched to healthier eating habits. It was fairly effortless to lose the weight for a while. The last couple months I have had to be very careful, but something has changed in me. What used to take discipline, now I just, well, do. I wouldn't say things are close to effortless, but they are not as much of a "struggle"—there's that word again. 

In addition to meditation, I do stretches and calisthenics for about 20 minutes a day and walk between 30 minutes and 3 and a half hours—the long days are when I go hiking in a state park. Somehow, the combination of diet, exercise, and meditation has made my life go more smoothly, and helped to make me reasonably happy. I think. Or maybe it's just the settling of brain chemicals. I don't know. What I do know is something is working. In spite of the pandemic, things are working out. 

I do want to emphasize that this rather austere routine has worked for me. There is no reason it can be expected to work for others. My sense, for what it's worth, is that becoming absorbed in an activity you care about is one of the keys. Maybe it's needlework. Maybe it's playing a sport. Maybe it's music. It varies. But the important thing is to engage fully and lose your sense of self into something greater—a project, a game, something. 

I suspect everyone has to find his or her own way. For me, a fairly rigorous meditation practice seemed to help a lot—after keeping up with it for a full year. Take from it what you will, but, like I say, I wouldn't recommend copying it. Good luck to everyone, and happiness to all!

"I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep,
Life I love you, all is groovy."

—Paul Simon