On January 11th, 2016, I started a daily practice of writing a joke meditation of the day called Cracked Pot Meditations. I was still recovering from the treatment of cancer, and I was having very challenging cognitive issues, so I chose just to put something simple and easy to write every day. Posting it to the blog allowed me to have some accountability. Some of those meditations were poorly written and unedited. I have gone back and begun editing these and adding an illustration, starting with the April 27th meditation. I hope you enjoy.
The original mediation was just a love letter to Nicole. We had been dating for about a year and had just gone camping. Nicole had her old boss’s dog, Chica. This trip inspired us to get our dog, Rufus. I kept it below for archival and nostalgic reasons. I wrote the new meditation in her honor. All men should go to therapy.
Meditation for June 19th
Men Should Go to Therapy
I’m on a new mission to get all my guy friends to go to therapy. Every single male friend of mine absolutely needs it. We are still bottling, drinking, and punching walls over our feelings. We are still one insult away from going to jail. We don’t lean on our friends for support and insight.
You’re probably asking, “But, Dave, you are so stable and healthy. You don’t need therapy”. First off, thank you, that is very kind, but the way I am today is because of years and years of therapy, and it doesn’t look like it is slowing down. Last year I started Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy (EMDR) and it has been a game changer in my therapeutic journey. Lots of repressed feelings, body keeping the score, and anxiety have lessened to almost an unnoticeable level.
There is this stigma with men and psychology, and it is killing us quite literally. If we aren’t brunching on bullets, we are keeling over with avoidable heart attacks. We also cause harm to others because we have no healthy outlets for our feelings, and it turns to violence against others. But, we are more scared of being “gay” or “girly” for talking about our feelings, so we decay into a ball of rage who puts all of their emotions on a sports team, movie franchise, music genre, or political movement.
Here are some signs you need to bring your silly ass to therapy: you are just overwhelmed all the time, like you just feel like you can’t ever catch a break or get rest. Whether it’s from being overwhelmed or not, you feel fatigued. You either sleep all the time or are just tired, no matter what. You’re a little cranky fuck face. You are just filled with rage and anger, and you feel like you can never express that enough. You’re punching walls, blaming people or systems for your downfall, or your jugular veins are bulging when you drive. You are full of anxiety and are having intrusive thoughts. You feel like nothing is going to be okay, and you suddenly think about turning the wheel right into the freeway divider. Maybe it’s not that passionate for you and you just can’t give a fuck. You wake up with no meaning or purpose to get out of bed and tackle anything. Nothing gives you pleasure. You feel hopeless and don’t have anything to look forward to. You stop hanging out with your friends. If you are married, your spouse is the only person in your life, and you are getting too heavy for them, but the idea of going “out there” with “people” is hell. If any of these things are true for you, then it’s time to discuss it.
Prayer
Bless be Oizys
Greek Goddess of misery,
You haunt the shadows of my male friends.
They won’t acknowledge your presence
And if they did acknowledge your presence,
Your weight would lessen and lessen,
Till one day you may not even be there anymore,
But the warriors sin with hubris against the gods,
By wishing to defeat your demons on their own.
Whisper in their proud ears,
Talk about it.
Amen
Craft
Step 1. Call your insurance company. Ask about the coverage for outpatient behavioral health benefits so that you know how much your cost-share will be to visit a therapist.
Step 2. Also, get a list from your insurance company so that you know who is in network.
Step 3. Compare the therapists with an online directory such as Psychology Today, GoodTherapy.org, or the American Psychological Association directory. See what they specialize in and if they seem to practice a therapeutic modality that will work for you.
Step 4. Call until you get an appointment. I’m not going to lie; this is the hardest part because the number of in-network providers is limited, and since the pandemic, people have been running to therapy in droves. Just keep calling until someone is able to take you.
Step 5. Go and keep going. It might not seem anything is changing at first, and for the first few appointments, it might not be as you and the therapist figure stuff out, but I promise that as you keep going, other people in your life might notice the changes before you do.
Step 6. And keep going even if shit is fine now. Soon it won’t be again, and it’s easier to go through these hard times with a therapeutic outlet.
Step 7. Tell your guy friends to also go to therapy.
Goal
If you keep doing the above craft and start getting other men to go to therapy, we might see the world change for the better. If you’re a guy and you think this meditation is dumb and you are too smart or whatever for therapy, you need therapy more than most dudes.
Meditation for June 19th, 2016
Getting Away
You can’t keep up that urban life for long before you just snap. You need to get somewhere where your stupid phone doesn’t get any reception and stare stupidly into a fire like a Neanderthal.
That is what my girlfriend and I just did—hence the lack of meditation inspiration these last few days. I know I should have given you a heads-up, but I needed to leave everything behind, including you, dear readers.
We ventured out into the wilderness that climbs down steep hills into Detroit Lake.
Rain
When we got there Friday night, just as the light was disappearing, it rained. We put up the tent and started a fire right away.
This camping trip was to celebrate our first anniversary. We wanted to get out of town, away from the bombs, the guns, the hate, the Trumps, the hating of Trumps, and all the rest of the hate.
Here we were in the dwindling light of day, trying to put our campsite together in time before we froze to death covered in rain. Also, I was sick.
We did it fast, efficiently, and without fighting. Not even a snide comment.
One year would mean doom to couples trying to put together a campsite in the rainy dark. One year between two people, one a planner and a future tripper, and the other a let’s just see what happens and a past tripper, and we were able to achieve the things that cause divorces; we put together a campsite.
When we woke up, we heard the pitter-patter of rain on our tent. We stared at the roof of our tent, watching and listening to the raindrops hit it and roll down the side. It was too cold and wet to get up yet to try to make a fire.
Finally, the rain won, and we got up and got out there, made a fire, and made our coffee, sausage, and eggs. We did it with enjoyment and pride.
This lady with whom I have spent the last year made a tarp cave for us to sit under while we stared at the fire in the rain.
It was enjoyable. There were no cell phones or radios (except the dozen country radios playing at other camps), just two people camping like Oregonians under a tarp in the rain, staring at a fire.
Dog
My girlfriend is taking care of a little dog named Chica for a few weeks, and this chihuahua came camping with us.
She was miserable the whole time.
Things Chica doesn’t like:
Rain
Cold
Outside
Noises
Too quiet
Ground squirrels
Chimpmunks
Other dogs
People
Nicole
Me
The soft fabric between multiverses
To say the least about Chica would be to say she shook and whined the whole time. She was only happy when we retired at night, when she would crawl into our sleeping bags with us and steal the heat.
Racism
We were escaping a lot of the hard news as of late when we heard a man yelling at his 17-year-old daughter about Black Lives Matter being a terrorist group. He yelled about her being racist for standing up for blacks rather than her own race. She stood up for herself, and he kept calling her an idiot.
This went on for a while. He was a big man with a Mohawk and had been drinking shots of Fireball Whisky.
He said black people were making themselves losers, and all the things that happened to them were their own fault.
I was so mad I was shaking. I wanted to go crashing through the underbrush and nut him with a hatchet. I wanted to come out of the dark trees into the firelight with a campchair and got ready for a scary debate about racism and parenting.
I decided not to do anything. Was I right? I don’t know when I can stand up for something and when I’m just being a violent hero.
We tried to escape the racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia of Facebook and urban living, and we were hearing it in a few campgrounds over.
The next morning, the host lady came down to their camp and said that she had a lot of complaints and that she had alerted the marshals (we were in a federal park) about some child abuse, and if she caught wind of that again, she would have the lot expelled. She sped off in her golf cart with her silent husband in the passenger seat. She had that grandma don’t give a fuck anymore attitude.
Partnership
I have found someone who is a balance between the most loving and caring person I know and a complete challenge—or pain in the ass.
She takes care of me in ways that only a person with a truly good, selfless heart can take care of someone. She considers me in all her decision-making and is so sweet to me.
I have a true partner in her. She is the love of my life, and I am glad that we have found each other.
It wasn’t the best time to begin a relationship last year. I was healing and recuperating from cancer and all the surgeries from that, and she was getting sober and out of a relationship. If you had looked at these two people on paper, a wise person might have suggested,
“DON’T DO IT!!! ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER THIS RELATIONSHIP!!!! MAYDAY! MAYDAY!”
But it worked in spite of all the challenges. We still work at it, and we do so because we want it to work. We both have had to come out of our comfort zones to figure out ways to improve this relationship.
I just want to make her better.
I love her, and I am lucky to spend time with such a beautiful, wonderful, wise, creative, comedic genius, brilliant, sexy, bright, mystical, and perfectly imperfect girl.
I didn’t need to get away to see that, but things need to be celebrated to be grateful for them.
Sick
I was sick the entire time we were gone. I have been sick basically since last weekend. My throat is dry and scratchy, my nose is crusted in boogers, my sinuses are inflamed and stuffed, I have a headache that sometimes feels like a fever and my lungs feel heavy.
I still went to my job and went camping you weak asses!