Reverse Design

In science, to prove that the independent variable has an effect on the dependent variable, reliably, sometimes we use a reversal design, or ABAB. I'm in one right now. The situation I THINK is causing my strung-out-negative-self-talk-anxiety-ridden-fits-of-crying-constantly is condition A. Then it was gone for a while (B). No crying. Happiness. Productivity. Then it was back (A). Stress. Gone (B) - no stress. I think we have proven something.

Given that I can't change the situation or get out of it anytime soon, I am completely mentally wrapped up in it. I have imaginary fights with people that aren't even provoking me yet, almost as a self-defense for when the moment comes that I do have to stand up for myself. How am I supposed to keep the inner peace when the stimuli around me are maddening AT BEST? ANd isn't it MOST important to be able to do so during times of duress? Who needs inner peace during halycon days?

Ann Morrow Lindbergh, in _A Gift From the Sea_, talks about the need for solitude. She says that since Virginia Woolf's time, women have come far enough so as not necessarily to need a room of one's own - after all, we are no longer property (but we still take his last name. WTF?) But she says we must have TIME of one's own. Says she, "Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone. .. women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves: that firm strand which will be the indispensable center of a whole web of human relationships. She must find that inner stillness which Charles Morgan describes as 'the stilling of the soul within the activities of the mind and body so that it might be still as the axis of a revolving wheel is still'".

While my family was on vacation in the outerbanks, all three of us in a one room cabana (maybe I SHOULD reconsider a ROOM of one's own), I stole a couple of hours throughout the two weeks and was able to rejuvenate my creative side to a degree. Walking alone on the beach, sitting with a book and coffee on the upper deck (reading _A Gift from the Sea_ by the seaside is a TREAT!) Following the hour of solitude, I was able to re-enter the happy madness and claustrophobia of family life with a much more present and calm being.

How do you keep your still axis during times of overwhelming stress?