Thanksgiving Gratitude Revisited

I remember reading the inspiring, poignant posts on people’s blogs last year on Thanksgiving and feeling like I needed to follow suit. That led to a self-conscious post called “Is There a Holiday for Kvetching?” in which I ultimately rebelled from the self-imposed pressure to express my gratitude for all the amazing gifts in my life. Instead I mentioned the wild mood swings that I’d been having all that week and I ended up getting lost in a reverie about the Thanksgiving-themed episodes from the TV shows of my childhood such as “Bewitched,” “The Brady Bunch,” the Charlie Brown specials, and “The Waltons.” As I looked back at that post this Thanksgiving morning, I was stunned to read the following paragraph:

Oh God, I’m doing it again, aren’t I? Taking another sidetrip into the cathode ray tube that doubles as my brain to avoid looking at my own problems in the here and now. I guess I don’t feel like publicly kvetching on Thanksgiving after all. Let’s just say it’s been a challenging time for me lately as I come to terms with the fact that my fear-based way of looking at the world is no longer serving me very well, in fact it’s driving me batty—something’s gotta change. When I first started therapy I thought that awareness was 9/10 of the battle. As soon as I started realizing what I was doing to cause pain to myself and others, I’d be able to stop doing it and all would be resolved, right? Not hardly. Being aware of negative behavior patterns IS a necessary step towards growth, but when you achieve this awareness without yet having the ability to substitute those patterns with something healthier, it actually feels worse (at first) than being unaware of the behaviors to begin with. Does that make any sense or am I starting to spout New Age mumbo jumbo? I realize that it’s hard to talk about my “issues” without really getting into them which I can’t bear to do right now—I have too many vegetables to cut. Besides, all this negative talk so does not fit my Blog Character!

I guess I’m stunned because I could have written the same exact paragraph this morning (except the part about the vegetables, we’re going to friends for dinner this year). I have absolutely no idea what the content of last year’s anxiety was, but I can sure relate to the frustration of being unable to gain control over my fear-based patterns that wreak no end of havoc in my life. I’m sure there are plenty of ways that I’ve grown over the past year but based on how I’ve been feeling this week I sure as hell haven’t let go of the need to “go faster” and to become the perfectly evolved human being I think I should be who never makes mistakes.

I look back on some of my earliest posts in this blog and realize that I used to get into way more personal stuff. I’d talk about difficult periods I was going through and personal problems I was having without feeling the need to wrap it up nicely in a carefully composed piece. Not that I was an open book exposing my innermost secrets to the world but I definitely used the blog as a way to process some of my conflicted feelings. Sometimes it helped a lot to write about them even though I have a very hard time looking back at those early posts without wincing in discomfort. They are very deliberately omitted from my sidebar links.

I have some friends who recently started blogs and they are going through some of the same early stages of blogger self-consciousness that I went through. “Who the hell am I to publicly write about my own personal thoughts and tribulations? What kind of crazy narcissism makes me think anyone could possibly be interested in my ramblings?” I shared my veteran blogger’s view with them that this was a perfectly natural feeling to have at the beginning but that it would pass. But did mine pass, or did I just start using my blog in a different way? I first started becoming aware that I had created a “Blog Character” that bore only partial resemblance to myself a few weeks before Thanksgiving last year. It was quite helpful to write about it back then and I’ve been aware of that duality ever since—how certain aspects of my thoughts and feelings are tweaked to create what I believe is a more palatable version of myself that I think people will be able to understand more clearly (and like more?).

But mostly, I realize, I’ve come to avoid writing at all when I’m feeling sad or depressed or overwhelmed, thus the huge dropoff of posts in the past few weeks and months. My Blog Character would explain that away by detailing how busy I am with exciting projects, but that’s just not accurate. I’ve sat down several times in the past few days to write posts on two different topics and have been unable to get very far because I felt too raw and caught in my own self-judgment. So my posts are not only much less frequent, they’ve also become more like stand-alone essays on specific topics with less overt connections to what’s going on for me emotionally. I’m not even saying that there’s anything wrong with that. Part of my growth over the past year has been to develop more discernment about when my so-called disclosure of personal information is really just a spewing to try to “get rid of” uncomfortable feelings. I don’t want to do that anymore.

I really don’t want to use this blog as an online personal diary and yet I’m consciously pushing my envelope right now almost as an experiment. I am so fixated at times at how I am perceived by others, will my world really shatter if I write something that’s presented in a messier, less resolved way than my usual posts? Part of my problem when I’m having a challenging time in my life is that I develop tunnel vision about whatever issues I’m dealing with and I have a tendency to catastrophize everything into a painful and terrifying belief that I am defined by my inadequacies and that “nothing will ever be the same again” because I fucked up in one way or another. And then, minutes, hours, or days later, when I realize that the planet is going to keep spinning and that things aren’t quite as bad as they seem when I’m in my darkest places, I can quickly revert back to “what crazy shit was I thinking?” mode and sweep everything under the rug until the next incident. This cycle (which I was apparently smack dab in the middle of a year ago today) goes on and on. That’s why I know that while there are actual content issues I need to address (but not here in this post), it’s actually this PROCESS I’m grappling with that is the true killer.

I’m uncomfortable treating this blog as a therapeutic tool although I know to some extent it always will be. It’s funny to write something that I know part of me will regret later. I so fear that label of “obsessive self-indulgent navel gazer” and yet I also know how much I admire when some of the bloggers I read do delve into personal matters and self-analysis. I’m especially impressed when they have the courage to expose some of their ugly warts. So maybe this is my Thanksgiving tradition, daring to take a look at where I’m at emotionally despite my fears of self-exposure and judgment. Still, I better post this rumination within the next few minutes before I chalk the whole thing up to appalling self-indulgence and press DELETE.

One thing that often comes up for me is my tendency to live in the polarity of extremes: something is either Good or Bad, Real or Fake, Right or Wrong. I have a hard time accepting that we all have conflicting feelings a lot of the time. My worried Blog Character says that anything I express on today of all days should be focused on the gratitude for all that I have in my life, all the loving relationships as well as the emotional, spiritual, and material abundance that I am blessed with. I DO feel gratitude for those things today. And at the same time I feel overwhelmed by the challenges of rising to my highest self and the need to get in touch with the real sadness and pain that lives side-by-side with my joy.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.

Comments

[Donna Anton]

Oooooh, the RSS feed means I can be the FIRST to comment on this post. (Plus the fact that I'm making Thanksgiving dinner for Sunday instead of today, which is just business as usual in the UK.)

Danny, I LOVE reading about your kvetching, in any way, shape or form. Whether you think you're hiding behind Blog Character or not, I find your thoughts and concerns and hiccups and criticisms and oh shits to be life-affirming. "We read to know we're not alone" is never truer when scanning your posts. The rest is just damn entertaining.

You have a gift for both exposition and analysis that is touching and honest. I will be happy to read whatever you post!

Happy Thanksgiving too -- and know that this reader is grateful for your blog.

[Laurie]

Danny,

Thank you for your honest and touching Thanksgiving post. I too grapple with the huge elemental issue of "focusing on the positive and spiritual" (of which gratitude is definitely an important part)--AND--honoring those deep dark emotions rather than denying them.

My solution is similiar to yours. Having those to parts of me side by side and honoring them both is crucial. Sweeping under the rug never works. Besides, the messages from the deep sadness and pain are very important and often transformative.

Adam, Sarah, Michael and I just went out to a Thanksgiving lunch buffet near our home. We were talking about you and reminiscing about past Thanksgivings. I gave Adam your blog info a while back and he told me he is reading it.

Much love to you and your family.

Laurie

[JanePoe (aka Deborah)]

Wonderful post Danny ... nice bit of reflection (and not too self-indulgent!) The beauty of blogs, or web logs, is that they are personal, are peppered with our own bias & perspective, and can be places for self-expression, in many different forms.

Much peace and warm wishes on this Thanksgiving Day. JP

[Melinama]

I haven't commented on anybody's blog post in quite a while but this one spoke to me. You bring up things a lot of us think about - it makes you, and this blog, more real. Thanks, and good luck with the continuing struggle. Remember, it's the process...

[tamarika]

Ah, Danny, I wondered where you'd been. How wonderful to read the real you again! How strange. You have always been so encouraging and supportive of me as an “obsessive self-indulgent navel gazer” and yet you are hard on yourself about it! Let me put it simply. Whatever you write about, whether your self or an essay on a single topic or issue, it is always interesting to read. Well written, humorous, intelligent and sensitive. Now I know you hate it when I say these things. But that is what I think and feel. At any rate, I have been missing hearing about you and am so pleased to find you again, even if it is only a brief spell for Thanksgiving!

Happy belated Thanksgiving to you.

[Larry]

Danny, Danny, Danny,

You never cease to amaze me. As a presumed member of the group you identified as 'some friends who recently started blogs and ...are going through some of the same early stages of blogger self-consciousness that I went through..', I've just gotta say that there are times when reading your blogs that I want to applaud and there are times when I want to cuss. This was one of those times I want to do both.

Of course blogging is therapeutic, and of course it's self-indulgent. It is also both of those things to those that read your blog. I described your blog (in my blog) as: '..part community event..' And you need only re-read the comments that your community posts on your blogs to understand just a fraction of the lives you touch. It's not that we merely sympathize, we empathize. We point at the screen and say: "Yes!! Exactly!" (God I hope I'm not the only one that does that).

Sorry about the lengthy rant, but this one touched a big part of me (the early-blogger self-consciousness thing). Being a late-comer to the party, I obviously haven't read the more personal blogs that have been removed from the sidebar. But you know what? Some of the best writers of their generation (and anyone else's) have dealt with their own demons, foibles, and doubts. From Mark Twain and Ernest Hemmingway to Woody Allen and Erma Bombeck.

See, I apologize about the lengthy rant, then rant some more. I have a nice-sized laundry list of things to be thankful for, and this year it got several new additions, your blog and (renewed) friendship being right there at the top. Hope your holidays are filled with naches (Yiddish never looks right in English print)

[OldOldLady Of The Hills]

I've missed your posts, too, Danny and your comments as well...So it was nice to see you had been by for a visit today...I give thanks for that on the day after Thanksgiving...
I hope you and Kendall are well and recovering from your loss....I miss talking to you and to her...
I'm not sure what I have discovered in this year plus of blogging, but I do know I have a place to really 'get down' with my struggles and pain and it is in "the Cellar", and not so much on my blog....So I think one uses a blog for whatever one needs to...And you are such a talented writer that anything and everything you share is interesting, and meaningful... always...!
Keep on keeping On" my dear...

[Adriana Bliss]

Danny, you may not do it often, but boy you navel-gaze well! :) I so understand your hesitations about what to do with the blog - analyzing it, defining it, redefining it. I suppose it's no different than the usual self-analysis we do our entire lives. Don't we constantly question ourselves? Don't we constantly ask, "who am I"? The Blog...is more of the same.

As a note, I love all your posts, no matter which "Danny" wrote them. ;)

[Danny]

Had a great Thanksgiving and I am filled with gratitude for all of you who've commented here and all of you out there who have the patience and empathy to slog through my ramblings.

[V-Grrrl]

I have a love/hate relationship with efforts at self-improvement, analysis, awareness.

I applaud those who choose to live an examined life and generally seek that path for myself. Yet time has taught me that I often gain the most wisdom from my experiences, both good and bad, when I just leave them alone for a while and let my subconscious process it all.

There's a delicate balance between seeking to improve one's self and seeking to change who we are. Some of my best moments as a person and as a writer are when I simply accept where I am and quit obsessing over where I've been or where I'm heading or who I want to be like.

[Linda Freedman]

Dear Danny,
In so many years as a therapist I've never yet heard as eloquent a siloquoy to process. It's all that counts, really, you're right, because the content keeps changing and the self-indulgence? Never stops.
Kvetching IS the name of the game in therapy, the process of kvetching is what makes people happy (I'm convinced), although a decent intervention is what opens people up to creativity and change.
Sounds to me like you've got both programs going. Yasher koach (You should have strength). It's your blog, do what you want (I keep telling myself).
But G-d, the temptation to edit EVERYTHING OUT is so unbelievable, isn't it?
Thanks for a fabulous post, Linda

[amba]

Danny,

In one way I'm so glad to hear you haven't been writing much, because it means I haven't missed too much by not reading. I LOVE your long free-associative posts, that perfectly reproduce the way a real mind works and always end up someplace felicitous, but my attention span is so short and twitchy these days that I don't get through anything over a few paragraphs. I've got a couple of months' worth of Sunday Times sections lying around, that I can't get through but can't bear to throw out. Oy.

I wanted to tell you my own absurd story about how and when I got over my perfectionism -- because that's what it is, isn't it? A judging yourself harshly at every moment for falling short, for not being this enough or that enough (witty, compassionate, serene, vivacious, altruistic, whatever). It goes with imagining (contrary to common sense) that others have it much more together and only you have these dark inadequacies, and obsessions with them, to such an extent. Ah, I remember it well.

This is so embarrassing, but when I was in my . . . let's see . . . late 30s, I guess, I was interested in that charlatan guru Rajneesh. Long story short, I went to a meditation weekend in Montclair, NJ. In one of the meditations, you had to sit opposite someone and say "Tell me who you are," and then for 5 minutes they had to say whatever, and then you'd swtich. One of those exercises that makes you feel like you're going to be found out for the fraud and slime you are.

The other guy went first. He said, "My name is Majida [his "sannyasin" name], I'm a father, a carpenter, a this, a that, and I'm a phony, and . . . I'm full of shit."

When my turn came, all I could do was gasp, "I'm just like you! I'm just like you!" And for some reason I completely lost my self-consciousness in the mind-blowing realization that we're all, in some way, hiding the same dark secret, namely, our flawed humanity. (Some people successfully hide it from themselves -- we call them character neurotics, narcissists, or sociopaths.) What a joke! We're really all in this together. And the illusion that other people are less full of holes and doubt may be based on nothing more exotic than the fact that they appear to us as coherent entities -- we can see them -- while to ourselves we are just a black ocean haunted by sharks!

I don't know, but it's never bothered me much since then. I used to expect myself always to be articulate and witty and feel terrible shame if I was tongue-tied, which of course . . . made me tongue-tied! It was all focused on words for me -- if words didn't flow (in writing or in social situations), I felt as if I didn't exist except maybe as some pathetic garbage. I constantly feared exposure. At that meditation retreat, I got the joke and I have never really expected myself to be more than human since then.

[amba]

There's something I didn't quite manage to say there, which is that all we're really hiding is the delusion that we have something that needs hiding. The moment you really realize you have nothing to hide, it pops like a bubble and you go, "What was the problem?"

[Paula]

You're a good, kind, sensitive person, which I'm sure is not a "Blog Persona". I'm fortunate to be able to read what you have to say. I always come away edified, no matter the topic.

[Roberta]

Couple of things about me that you may already know... one is that I'm new in here, (your blog, and also, the blog world in general); the other is that I've been quiet lately. Included in the quiet is I haven't been reading other blogs much.
I’d talk about difficult periods I was going through and personal problems I was having without feeling the need to wrap it up nicely in a carefully composed piece.
This, and this entry as a whole, was quite comforting for me to read. I blogged today for the first time in a bit, and it killed me not to apologize for the lack of wrap-up.
Part of my personal ball of confusion is that I refuse to blog about a problem with Joe that he is not fully apprised of. So usually it's all fixed (or that chapter is put to bed) before I write about it. And naturally I end on an upbeat. But in the meantime, if I'm distracted by an unresolved Joe issue, I'm struck dumb.
Also, when I'm not resolved, you get your cryptic entries. Like today.
It's a little better tonight. We worked out a something.
Happy all-the-holidays.