Peace

In the chat during Mike Gravel's ultimate debate and q&a session, we covered a
lot of good ideas. I'll try and give some highlights here so they can
be passed on. Reply to me if you think you can help some way or
another. Your all valuable assets to the campaign, every idea, every
action in support, is precious. Lets get it done.

• ebay donation auctions
  • people donating their belongings to the campaign
  • simple listing of the ebay donations
  • market it with videos of people donating
  • simple website script for linking to them
    • or standard posting format to be listed in the search query link

• live events, for other events
  • republican debates, dem debates, other things.
  • planned ahead depending on where mike is.
  • mike needs a more comfy chair for these q&a sessions
  • an online coordinator to handle the chat, at least need ops to boot spammers etc.

• official resources for new people
  • useful bits of information and resources
  • tasks that people can do that help
  • IRC chat how to

• Mike Gravel Lighted Cab Signs
  • Mike Gravel Cab Tour?

• candidates faces on a car
  • selling sledgehammer smacks
  • then selling car on ebay

• videos on specific issues
  • net neutrality
  • iran
  • abortion
  • stem cells
  • technology
  • mars
  • prohibition
    • Any other problems that mike gravel can suggest solutions to

• stop and think
  • tshirt
  • mugs
  • banners
  • stickers
  • posters

• Autographed copies of the pentagon papers
  • sold on ebay
  • any other historical stuff mike might have that could be sold

• NY film students
  • they pay to use equipment and get experience
  • shooting videos for mike

• Campaign days
  • pick days that people will do stuff to get publicity and supporting
  • supporters will follow through and do lots

• Recurring mike gravel e-show
  • with a co-host or two
  • focusing on calling out the other politicians
  • speaking truth via entertainment

• Press Contact List
  • So volunteers can try to get mike more coverage

 

 

external site possibility
http://www.bennessimo.com/Awesome

I'm sure there was a lot more to it. But a lot was missed. These are
the good ideas that stuck out in memory and were discussed. There are a
lot of people who just need to be told to do something. Thus, we need
to come up with something to do. Some attention getting action that can
be repeated across the country. On video of course.

There are any number of possibilities, it all depends on how much you
want to utilize the resources available. There are some brilliant
people who support mike gravel. They just need stuff to do. Most won't
even require money to do things part time.

 

 

Looking forward to creating links to all these ideas as they develop.

For a few years of my life, I suffered from debilitating anxiety.

I couldn’t take a shower without the feeling of my walls closing in on me and the suspicion of a person wailing in through my bathroom window, searing past the screen with a knife pointed towards my body.

I still managed to get clean, but it was agonizing every time.

One morning, I had pulled an all-nighter to write an English paper. I took a moment to lay down on my bed, just to breathe. I didn’t feel very good after being up all night, stressing over a stupid essay. I had just eaten an early breakfast, so I was mildly lethargic. As I laid there on my bed, I noticed the way that I was breathing. It was just as though I were asleep. I was very tired, so this made sense. However, this particular breathing pattern seemed too quiet, too calm. It frightened me. It aroused feelings of death, insatiable sleep. I was far too tired.

I had a fleeting thought of a man who I was in love with. Unfortunately, he was several hundred miles away in Denver, Colorado, which added to the pain whenever I missed him. I imagined him sitting in a chair in the far right corner of my room, next to my closet.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I exploded. My heart sprang and careened inside of my chest. I felt it ripping out of my body and screaming through my ears. The air around me quivered and shook as my vision blurred at a frightening pace. I felt like I was falling ten thousand feet down at the same speed as the distance that I was falling. I thought that I was dying – having a heart attack – a psychotic episode, who knows.

Then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped.

I laid there, stiff as a board and heavier than a boulder. I almost called out to my little sister for help, who was upstairs in her bedroom, but I couldn’t get my voice to work. Did I need to go to the hospital? What if I had a heart attack?

I slowly got up, and managed to walk. That day was terrible. I was afraid, morose, and exhausted. I could barely focus. Everything I tried to do was blocked by thoughts about that incidence in my bedroom.

I found out later that it was an anxiety attack.

That, coupled with my suicidal depression, led to my first experience of psychotherapeutic medication. Anti-depressants, as it were. Happy pills. Although I was taking a very small dose, they worked.

I moved out of my home that summer, to Nashville, TN. I got a job with the Nashville Ballet as a 1^st year trainee. It was my first time working in a professional ballet company – I was so excited. So excited, that I decided to stop taking my medication.

This, was a very bad decision. I had moments, where I would just stand in the middle of my room, tears streaming down my face, trying to scream but no sounds could exit my throat – much like a dream where you open your mouth to scream, but you can’t, because your voice doesn’t work when you’re sleeping. I wouldn’t know where to go, what to do, or what to think. Sometimes, I would just let my mind run, so that I could listen to what was really there. I found these words within me: “You will die. You will die tomorrow. You will die.” This terrified me. Was I going to die? Holy shit. I had a medical condition a few years prior where my heart had nearly stopped, resulting in a long hospital stay. My scars were deep. What if it happened again? Am I still at risk? Terror, horrible anxiety came after my stay in a hospital that was filled with screaming girls and horrible hospital food, Midnight EKG’s and ignorant nurses.

I had been confined to my bed with strict medical bed rest. It had been a week, and I had not been able to take a shower save the occasional self-administered sponge bath. I finally convinced a nurse to wash my hair for me. I couldn’t leave my bed, so she had to turn me around and hang my head off the foot of the bed so that she could rinse my hair into a trash can. My hair was falling out in clumps. My hair was everywhere. It was on the floor, in the trash can, on me, on the nurse. It was everywhere. Another nurse walked in the room, and asked: “is that supposed to happen?” I shot her an evil glance. The nurse who was washing my hair replied: “yes. This happens all the time.”

Of course it’s supposed to happen! I was violently annoyed. What kind of nurse wouldn’t put two and two together and see that my hair loss was obviously a result of stress. Hospitals are stressful places! Especially if a doctor tells you that if you don’t follow their directions, that you “run the risk of dying.” That’s pretty scary stuff.

Nevertheless, my life was fraught with fear ever since. It was pure anxiety.

Standing in my bedroom, I could only see yellow light. The incandescent bulbs on my ceiling were glowing through my head, spilling into my mind and illuminating everything inside. I could never make sense of it all. So, I would just stand there and cry. Shaking, like a spider that had fallen down from the ceiling, hanging from its thread, swinging aimlessly around an empty room. I was that spider. Afraid, because I didn’t know where to go or what to do- paralyzed with fear.

One day, I was having my usual breakdown. Fear, quivering, tears streaming down my face, mouth open in a silent wail to the sky. I had a thought:

“I am alone”

I was motionless. From that moment on, that was the only thought in my head for almost a week. My mind was reeling. The thought was purely my own. I would breathe slowly, air creeping down my throat and softly peering at my insides, watching the black toil and the oceans within me splash among the villi of my intestines. My mind was clear. I couldn’t take control of it, so it was completely in control. When that thought began to lose its hold in my mind, I moved on to a different thought that I could find lurking within my head. That went on for weeks, then months. Almost a year had passed, and slowly, I would breathe and let my mind slowly unwind, unfurl, like a ball of yarn slowly rolling, leaving a trail of thread behind. That was my mind.

I would listen constantly to Eckhart Tolle. His spiritual teachings led me through some of the hardest times, despite my newfound mentality. I was living with two of my co-workers at Nashville Ballet II. One of them, I was fine with. We got along, despite my process into and out of debilitating anxiety. The other, we were at hell from the start, which continued up until the day that I left.

The day after my “enlightenment,” I entered the ballet studios of Nashville Ballet. I sat down in a corner of the room to stretch and warm up for class. I had focused purely on moving as slowly as possible, within reason. I wasn’t about to become a human sloth, drawing attention to me as though I were a mannequin moving slowly to life in front of my comrades. Not a good idea. So, slowly but verdantly, I moved throughout my day. I was calm and serene. Even my co-workers noticed. Jimmy Joiner, one of the 2^nd year trainees there at Nashville Ballet commented on my newfound mood.

“You’re just so… chill”

I smiled. I was. The slowness helped me a lot. We began rehearsal. I just danced and calmly smiled at everyone around me, as though I were silently acknowledging everybody in their own right, my presence beaming out as though I could embellish the entire world. That was a wonderful day. I would breathe in and out, in and out, in and out. Whenever my mind began to race with panic, I would just slow down and breathe, and control my thoughts.

“I am alone… I am alone... I am alone... I am alone...”

My breath followed the words. In and out. In and out. I was chanting mantras. These were my mantras.

I eventually had to change my mantra from time to time. It would evolve into such things as; “I am serene” or, “I can.” Whatever helped with the situations at hand, or whatever I was going through at the time. I eventually began acknowledging whatever I saw within me. I was very spiritual at the time. I would cast runes, read my own tarot, burn candles and meditate, burn incense, place offerings to spirits upon the fireplace in my room that no longer burned. I would chant things like… “I am a witch.” Or “I am psychic.” I would adopt that persona as I chanted. I would become that person that I saw within myself. It was as though I was acknowledging it so that I could purge it out of my system, so that I could come closer to my true self.

I do not believe that it is possible to authentically “know” your true self. It is true, that I will never know my true self, although now I am closer than ever. I can now walk down a hallway, and brush aside any remnants of fear or anxiety. If I do feel them, I ride the waves, and let them take me aside. I know now that fear, anxiety, any emotion or feeling that may drag you down are not truly a part of you. You are not your anxiety. Your anxiety is not a part of you. In fact, you are just you. Simple as that. They have a function, I have decided. They have a purpose. Occasionally, I have thoughts in my head that pop out of nowhere. Recently, I have been listening to the occasional phrase:

“I want to go home.”

Of course, this “home” does not exist. I think of the home I grew up in, that’s not the home I’m listening to. Even when I’m in my own home, or wherever I am living at the time, and I still think: “I want to go home.”

I know now that these thoughts come whenever I am distraught or afraid. It is a comfort, a saying that a small child would cry out when they are upset or afraid. “I want to go home!!”

I now try to verbalize whatever I am really feeling whenever that thought pops up. Instead of “I want to go home,” I think: “I am sad that I am sitting at my home bored with nothing to do this weekend because I am new here and I know nobody in this town.”

Again, it’s much like taming a small child within myself. It’s like telling a little boy: “use your words, Timmy!” When he throws a fit and hits his fists on a table and cries when he wants something or is angry. This, I feel, is a portrait of the mind. Some philosophers or spiritual teachers call it the “monkey mind.” The incessant chatter within us that never stops.

“I am scared, what am I doing? What is this? Oh man, I wanna go. Let’s go. Can we please go? I really want to go! What is that? Oh crap, I’m scared. This really isn’t okay. Okay, it’s scary, we really need to go. I really need to go!”

This “I” refers to the self. Not you, per se. It is your “self.” The self can be referred to as the chatterbox that never stops in your head. It is similar to the concept of the mind. It is what you think you are, but in fact, you are not. Do you ever notice that whenever you speak about yourself, you are speaking about your self, separate from you? It’s like speaking in second person.

“I can do it myself!” -- Myself can do it…

So, the self, speaks for you, or rather, for itself. The mind/self can be afraid. You, however, you are not. You are patiently silent. Your being, exists patiently and silently, moving throughout the ether as a quiet vessel, needing to open up to the outside world and bare it’s inner workings, spiraling out like a spaceship landing into an open sea.

On a tangent… look at what I just said: “The self speaks … for itself.” So, does this imply that the self also has a self? Now, we enter into the spiral of the self. Does this mean that the self is neverending? Just like a fractal? You have a self, but you are not your self. The self speaks for itself, not for you. So, the self speaks for itself – that must mean that the self’s self speaks for itself as well. It goes on and on.

Not only would I chant words or phrases in my mind, but I would also employ visualizations and imagery within myself. At one point, to keep my mind whole and in line, I visualized myself within it, holding two sides of my brain apart with my hands, standing strong and open. Like Da Vinci’s man, arms and legs outstretched in a large star shape, holding two sides of a mind apart, to have a small space of quietude and peace. Either side was the monkey mind, chatting and holding fear and panic, suffering. My space lasted for a long time, until the strength failed and my two sides came back together again.

I would visualize my body, and all parts within it. I formulated a map of the self within my body. It was a map of the soul, the spirit, or the being. It began with a seed in the very middle. That was the star, the central point of the being. Then there was a shell, much like a grain of rice, surrounding it, then another outside that. There were a few inside the body, until there came a shape outside, another vessel, a rice-shaped sphere surrounding the body. That was the final orb, the final barrier. This was my map of my self. I would dance within it, holding it inside of me as my self, becoming me.

None of these things last. But, they maintain a memory within me that I can use for the rest of my life. I hold these things inside as a useful tool to keep in an arsenal in case I ever need to pull something out of my bag of tricks in a sticky situation.

A mind is a very useful tool. It is tricky. You may feel that you have no control over it, or that it has complete control over you. Some people feel very calm and at peace with themselves, and have no need to analyze their own minds. I believe that anybody can benefit from the “aha” moment that I have undergone. Introspective surgery, as it may be. But, not all people feel the need to do so. It is entirely up to you. You create your own path, as you are an individual.

The self is to be debated. If you truly want to study all the philosophies behind spiritual becoming, pick up a book by Eckhart Tolle. He is a great teacher, and a great jumpstart for your own travelings of the being. I listened to his CD’s of “The Power of Now.” He tells the story of his own “aha” moment, where in a moment of utter despair, chaos, and emergency, he suddenly had a single thought, a revelation, and suddenly – his mind stopped. Bliss began, and he’s lived that way ever since.

Now, I, nor him, can guarantee utter peace. Not everybody gets that. I sure didn’t. I still underwent pain and suffering, anxiety and depression even after my “aha” moment. But, I still maintained a sense of clarity to hold myself together and move through the pain, to the permanent “other side.” Even now, I intermittently feel the pang of anxiety in my stomach, prompting me to do things that I don’t want to do. But, I acknowledge it, and let it pass. I stop and breathe before moving impulsively and irrationally, and then get up to move naturally, peacefully.

Let yourself go. This is the main idea. Relax into the experience of just being. Let yourself go, and you can become your true self in the making.

Good luck.