In this podcast episode, we talk about an actual real life example of building resilience when Hurricane Isaias struck our neighborhood in the State of Pennsylvania. We’ll also talk about the basics on how to do a stress-releasing meditation.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Hello and welcome to the Sally in the Zen podcast. I’m your host, Sally. I’m a Zen Buddhist caregiver, taking care of my elderly folks and always in pursuits to find Zen moments in everyday living. If you’re new to the podcast, welcome. If you’re not new, and returning, welcome back.
Hope all is well with you and your family since we last spoke. What’s funny is the last episode literally when I dropped it was talking about how to be resilient, how to build resiliency during difficult times. And literally when I finished that episode, we had an actual blackout because of hurricane Isaias coming into our neighborhood. Talk about the Universe making you put money where your mouth is.
That’s what today’s episode is about – an actual case study on how to build resiliency during difficult times So if you’re interested, let’s get started.
During the week of August 2nd, I happen to be on vacation. And it was a staycation since we couldn’t go anywhere. Normally we would go over to Rehoboth Beach for a long weekend and just hang out under the sun, in the sand, and just bake ourselves red. But obviously given this year’s circumstances, our beach vacation was canceled pretty early on this year.
So I had a staycation instead. But I also felt kind of bad for Mom and Dad because they were looking forward to getting out of the house. The fact that I’m unplugged from the computer from work and didn’t need to focus my attention on that; it was much needed brain power break time. Does that make sense? So on that backdrop, going into vacation, Hurricane Isaias was coming up from the south. It was due to hit Florida, the Carolinas and move on up the East Coast to our area. I didn’t really think much of it because I was on vacation. That’s what you do. You just try to chill out on vacation.
When Hurricane Isaias came into our neighborhood, we had a blackout for two and half days. And the last time we had a blackout, it was in Maryland. I forget which storm that was but I did a blog post on that which I may or may not have uploaded.
So I’m trying to recollect what happened. I think it was into the first day of the blackout in Maryland that we ventured out to the Asian Mart and got a gas grill. It was a single gas grill that you can place on top of a table and it’s fueled by a canister of butane. We already had a couple of oil lamps so that’s what tide us over for those days. So with this gas grill we were able to just cook our own food and didn’t rely too heavily on canned food.
If I remember correctly, the only issue that came out of that blackout was the fridge defrosting and water was all over the kitchen floor and that was fun fun. And yes ,we had that same problem with this blackout which made for more fun fun.
So fast forward to the current blackout that happened Tuesday around maybe 2:00 in the afternoon. I remember exactly what I was doing. I was making zucchini bread and mixing the zucchini actually into the dough when the electricity went out. And that was the ball game.
I believe at that time the weather outside our window, it was more windy than rainy. I think the rain had already subsided and passed us. So it was kind of like cool autumn weather outside. So after about a half hour, I went around the house and opened up all the windows and the patio doors to let the breeze in. And we got lucky where it wasn’t humid, like summer humid kind of heat. So we got lucky in that part. But when the electricity didn’t come back on within that hour, we finally settled and accepted the fact that we were going to be in a blackout.
Now I had downloaded the PECO app onto my phone. Now PECO is our electric company and with your smartphone being so smart, it just spoils you. So I had the app on my phone and usually if something was going on in the neighborhood, you can see on your phone if there’s an ETA of the power coming back up, what location, what area around us are impacted by whatever.
The app is very cool but when I had logged into the app, it was saying that the event was just too early to update. So they were in the middle of assessing the damages and determining an ETA for us and just give them time. Because it just happened. So that literally left us in the dark.
Now we’re also lucky where our bathroom wasn’t connected to the electricity, like I know a couple of friends who live in a condo over in Philadelphia. Their bathroom is powered by electricity and the fact that if they had a blackout, they wouldn’t be able to use their toilet which is pretty unfortunate. But lucky for us we didn’t have that issue.
So we set about calling it an early evening. Another funny point about this particular blackout is that Mom and Dad are so hooked on YouTube – Pop on his TV and Mom on her cell phone – both of them pitch to fit. I think I can honestly say, in all transparency and I’m not boasting, I think between the three of us, I was the most calm because this kind of was like rustic. You can’t really equate this to roughing it but I know for a fact that there’s tons of people who would pay to go on vacation to be so unplugged from everything, which literally was happening to us. So I was of the mindset I’m on vacation – that goodness, I’m on vacation. We’re home We’re safe. We’re sound. We just lack electricity and just make do with what we have.
That was my particular mindset. I was actually thinking, hey, I am literally on a rustic vacation and was actually having fun with that. But I was a little bummed out about my zucchini bread. I kept it in the cooler and I was just hoping and praying that when the electricity comes back – and hopefully it’ll come back soon – I could throw these suckers into the oven and make them before they spoil.
But Mom and Dad, and here’s a refresher: Dad is always referring to himself as 80 years old even though he’s only 78, but a 78-year-old man who’s hooked on his YouTube and cable TV, and my 70 something year old mother who’s hooked on to the Asian dramas on YouTube on her cell phone – her cell phone that never leaves her hand – I was expecting a meltdown. But as long as I keep myself calm, they will remain calm. And I think I’ve said this in another episode too. When I’m calm, they’re calm. If I’m freaking out, they will get that bug and freak out along with me. So that’s just no good.
So being resilient at this time was actually assessing moment by moment, listening to what they were saying, trying to understand what was the motive behind what they were saying and determine basically if they were going to have a meltdown on me. So having an elderly folk meltdown on you is just not good. This would be stuff that makes for interesting TV but not for me when it’s happening in my face.
So the next day, which was Wednesday, August 5th, we made dumplings. Or I should clarify that and say Mom made dumplings. In the morning time when Mom had woke up, she was in a little funk. Because she was missing the electricity and the normal day-to-day. And I can understand that, because in our COVID-19 environment where it’s constantly crazy outside and the old normal is totally blown away, you want to have some kind of steady consistency in some kind of normal. For us having this blackout, it just exacerbated it. But I had a battery backup for her phone so she was glued to her cell phone. But that left Pop without his cable TV. I want my MTV. I had to throw that in there but he didn’t have his news going on, which he watches 24/7 and screams at the TV. But what I did was figure out that as long as Mom has a purpose, she’s okay. So what I did was assess the food situation.
We had frozen meats in the freezer and thinking proactively of how much longer we’re going to be without power, right? If you gauge it from our past experience of having been in a blackout for 5 days, the meat in the freezer is going to have to go. It’s going to either rot or we’re going to have to do something with it. And the night before Mom had the foresight to bring out fresh pork to make dumplings. Because she had already anticipated that during my vacation she was going to give us a treat and make homemade dumplings. So she had asked about that and I’m not sure. So we have left it overnight in the sink and it had defrosted, ready for us to do something on that Wednesday morning.
And when Mom has a purpose, she zeroes in on that purpose with absolute focus. So she was focused on making that dumpling, making the fresh dumpling batch, pretty much all afternoon, basically. Since you only have one gas grill but she was making it from scratch, putting ingredients all together.
So her phone, we gave over to Pop and he was watching YouTube on her phone. I had one backup battery charger and because of that, I had to run back and forth between our cars and charge it in the car.
So our phones are charging in the car, the backup chargers’ being charging in the car. So in between those activities, I made sure to pull Mom and Dad away literally out of the house to go walking around the neighborhood for at least 30 minutes to clear the mind, get some fresh air, just get the blood rolling a little bit. And after that we made shopping trips over to Acme, to Giant to get water, to get ice because we needed to put the rest of our foodstuff in there that we were not going to touch.
So Wednesday night, we also called an early night. And Mom did have a little meltdown because she’s a late owl while we’re the early birds. So when it was pitch black at 8:30 on Wednesday night, we had the oil lamps going but Mom just doesn’t like the dark. She just can’t handle being in the dark even though you have a lamp. She wants the electricity. She wants to be able to watch TV. That’s what she normally does, up until like 12:00 at night. She’s… she’s an owl.
But she had a meltdown on Wednesday night about that. Until I calmed her down and convinced her that, maybe it was a good thing to go to bed early. She was more concerned that if she goes to bed early, she’s going to wake up way too early. But given the circumstances because we have no electricity, what else is there to do? And you can’t read, really, right? So she calmed down and went to sleep at 9:00, while me and Pop went to sleep at 8:30.
So during Thursday, Mom set out to make stuff eggplant and stuffed pepper. Yay me! As I’m sitting in the kitchen, watching Mom make her stuff eggplant, and she’s grilling it on the grill, and I can smell it, and we’re talking, and Pop is in the living room, watching his YouTube, a comedy show and you hear him laughing and that was just fine. Everybody was relatively happy and coasting along in this rustic kind of environment.
And then it was around 5:00 when I heard a pop. And that pop, I knew exactly what it was because as soon as I heard it I’m like oh my God. And it took Mom and Dad a few minutes to figure out what was going on, that the fact that the electricity was suddenly back.
PECO had provided an estimate that it was going to be back Thursday. So the blackout happened on Tuesday afternoon. They initially had estimated they would have power back by Thursday midnight. And then the next day on Wednesday, they had changed that projection and said that the power was not going to be back on Thursday but instead Sunday. And then later on, they sent out another assessment saying, oh no we’re going to have to power back on Thursday midnight.
At this point, it was more of, I’ll believe it when I see it and just prepare for the worst, which is Sunday or possibly beyond Sunday. But luckily the power pop back on on Thursday at 5:00 p.m. We were all very happy because that night, we were able to take a shower. So that was great. It felt like we went away on a rustic vacation and we just got back. And we were just ecstatic. And we had the best night sleep that Thursday night, with AC! It was lovely, lovely, lovely.
Now that that was all over and life resumed back to normal, it wasn’t until Sunday night, when I was on my own, meditating, when I allowed myself to decompress. When I decompress nowadays, it’s by meditating. When I need to decompress when it’s pretty heavy, I just follow what my body needs and that night, I meditated for an hour and a half.
I wanted to talk about the steps I took to clear off the anxiety, the low-grade depression that I actually was experiencing, and needed to shake off, because when we were going through that blackout, I needed to be strong for my family. But now that everybody was okay and life was back to normal, I needed to see to my own self. and that was through meditation.
How I meditate is in the quiet, in the dark, in my bedroom, on a cushion, on a floor. Keeping it really, really simple because meditation and I…I hesitate to talk about how I meditate. Meditating is such an intimate and personal journey for every single one of us, and the way I meditate is not necessarily another person’s way of meditating. But I just wanted to go through the basic steps of how I do this.
Now from the previous episode, I had given a couple scenario situations where we talk about reframing. So as I was sitting in my meditation, I was reframing a particularly strong thought in my heart, in my head. And my heart was saying that I could not get through this. I can’t get through this. I can’t release this burden that’s in my heart. And I reframed it within myself. I was talking to myself, saying, yes I can get through this because I’ve gotten through something similar to this before and I’ve seen the other side.
So I was pretty confident that I can do it and that’s the key to this kind of self-talk, to this kind of self-healing. You first need to believe. Really deeply believe that you can get through this. Because that’s the first critical step in your mind, in your heart. You settle that thought into yourself and everything just begins to open up.
So the other thought that I needed to reframe after I let that one go was I don’t know how to get through this. I don’t know how to release. And I mentally reframed that thought into I know how to get through this.
And after reframing those questions came the breathing. Because the critical part of any kind of meditation is your breath. And I was breathing through my heart. You’re breathing in cleansing breath, cleansing thoughts. Breathing out the uncertainty and that’s how I release the emotions.
So in my meditative state, in my little corner in the dark, after I release the emotions, I just be. I’m in the quiet, just being. You recognize and acknowledge what’s in your control and you release everything else that’s beyond your control. Any kind of conflicting thoughts still remaining, take a deep breath and release it out. And if you think to yourself that I’m not okay, reframe that thought and say yes, after this moment, I am okay. And you know what? You are okay. Because if I can do it, you can definitely do it.
Now the last thing I’ll say about meditation, it takes practice. It takes practice to quiet yourself down, to quiet down the noise in your heart and your head but it’s absolutely achievable. It’s just all about baby steps. Baby steps, baby steps.
Now we’ve reached the end of today’s episode. Hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions or comments, drop on my blog Sally in the Zen.com. Click on the Contact page and send me your thoughts. And depending on what it is, I’m always on the lookout for interesting ideas for future episodes and maybe I’ll spotlight your question. We’ll see. I hope that you and yours stay safe, stay sounds, and thank you so much for spending a few minutes of your time with me today, in my pursuit to find Zen moments in everyday living. Talk to you next time.
