Biscuit Reynolds went to be with the Goddess one year ago. The anniversary is hitting me harder than I anticipated.

90% of deaths have some foresight, but our culture does a terrible job honoring death and preparing us for the inevitable changes in our lives. I knew from having experienced the deaths of dozens of loved ones, the grief process was inevitable, inescapable, and perhaps this one would be the most profound change of my life–no pets in my home for the first time in my adulthood.

I was afraid for me, actually. My mental health responds well to care responsibility (wow can I throw myself into the care of others).

I knew 2024 would be the year he would exit the realm, his body was clearly declining. Sometimes the shift from elder pet to geriatric pet is gradual but for my Biscuit Reynolds it was a fast and sharp shift. Before the shift I thought “I am going to need to get a pet ASAP for my mental health” and then when the shift happened I felt the settling in my spirit that I would know when it was time and to take some space.

He was always special needs. When I adopted him I could tell he was in some pain right away. Much forensic veterinary work later, he had a surgery that alleviated pain and blockage in his urinary tract through castration and he was on a regimen of gabapentin to manage pain from hyperaesthesia. (A painful condition of his skin that was why I kept his fur groomed short.)

As his elder care required more of my lifestyle coordination, he went blind and I had to keep our home especially clutter free so he could move freely. It turned out that the circumstances of the last four years of his life in our small RV home were well suited for a blind cat. He cared most about being in my lap on the recliner or lying on my chest when we went to bed at night. Or standing and staring at me, judging and overlording.

The bedtime rituals without him were the hardest to bear during the first few months. I remember wondering why I got so many more cards when my deadbeat dad died than my cat. I spent thousands more hours with Biscuit Reynolds than my dad. I actually love the relationship I have now with my dad’s spirit (I’ve talked about it on my podcast.)

I received a lot of care and concern when Biscuit Reynolds passed because I asked for it, but also not as much as the passing of my father. It made me more determined to show up for my friends when they lose their pets/familiars.

I spent the first few months after Biscuit Reynolds died not cleaning my house and letting clutter pile up. A caregiver exhale. A grief fog. I let it take months to move his scratching post away from the front door.

I have since cleaned my house but I do still have his clothes in the closet–not yet ready to take those to storage.

I looked for signs from him and immediately received them. I get them all the time. He’s shown up in dreams and I get messages from him and I feel confident he is planning to reincarnate with me again in this lifetime (not as a cat, I think he hated being a cat, actually, but he knew how much I love squishy faced cats).

This week hit me harder than I thought. Typically death anniversaries don’t trip me up. It’s people’s birthdays that do it, or seasons of time. But grief is a mercurial mistress and one must expect the unexpected.

Of course his death anniversary is a powerful Leo full moon. The other day as I was tromping through fresh fallen snow in Gay Gardens, where he spent so much time wandering around, I saw a line of paw prints that didn’t originate or end anywhere. Too small to be raccoon. I realized it must be Biscuit Reynolds. (I don’t gaslight my intuition. I just believe it–who does it hurt for me to believe I’m seeing a sign from my dead cat? Love is infinite and love lives on.)

This morning I woke up and for some reason noticed a snot globber in the fold of a curtain. Biscuit Reynolds would sneeze and his snot would just be like Ron Weasley’s slugs landing all over the place.

I am not the best homemaker but things aren’t terrible in here. Yet somehow I just hadn’t noticed until today this lingering crusty snot globber from my gross little guy. (He was kind of like living with a tiny furry frat guy.)

And when I lost my dad and when I lost Biscuit Reynolds I said “In lieu of flowers, please send cookies.” And when I went to the post office today I had a gift box of Girl Scout cookies waiting for me. From my bestie Spunky (I think–there’s no card) nudged by my beloved cat in the ancestral realm.

He’s still here for me in his own way, and I know he is nearer than my breath and right in my thoughts with me.

I have been looking back on this time in 2017 for inspiration from how I dealt with the first unknowable doom filled days of the Dump administration. And I keep looking at those pics when I had both of my beloved pets and a vibrant supportive love relationship in a city I loved. Losing my Grandmother was hard but I was surrounded by so much support. I didn’t have any idea how good I had it.

I hope this experience of a year with no one else in my household, doing life interminably solo, this profound loneliness helps me expand the gratitude when I do have pets again, more body fluids to clean up and bossy meows and ruffs.

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Departing Instagram (hereinafter: IG) and Facebook (hereinafter: FB) and other Meta apps (Whatsapp & Messenger) last month gave me a lot of time freedom and an experience of withdrawal.

A book I’ve read several times, Switch on Your Brain by Dr. Caroline Leaf, says this about social media (this research specifically looked at FB).

“Research shows that multitasking social media can be as addictive as drugs, alcohol, and chemical substance abuse.” Social media interacts in our brain like HEROIN and cocaine, y’all.

All the withdrawal I felt leaving IG (specifically my addiction to IG Stories) I anticipated. Because I’ve healed a lot in 12 step programs for family and friends of alcoholics, had lots of self compassion for my compulsion to swipe around looking for the familiar IG logo.

One week away turned into “after the New Moon in Aquarius” (a great occasion to consider how I want my relationship with social media to be going forward) and then “just a few more days” because it hasn’t felt right to get back on the apps.

IN LIEU OF SCROLLING!

Intentionally shifting my attention away from IG, I decided I was going to instead focus on where I wanted to grow as a human. We become the five people we hang around most and the books we read.

I made a list of the people I wanted to become more like this year and some of my scrolling time has been shifted to connecting more with them!

Brandi Marie Carlile has the grit, activist integrity and artistic merit I aspire to. She has an online fan community I’m part of so some of my scrolling action includes going through the social feed at the Bramily. I’m also surfing you tube for interviews with her. And thanks to her Bramily there are at least a few shaky cell phone videos from most of her concerts and I can spend some easy brain time at night listening to her music and how she connects to an audience.

Octavia E. Butler had grit, artistic integrity, artistic merit and was a visionary. I’m spending time listening to whatever books she has on audiobook (finishing the Patternist series right now) and that’s been a better use of my time than scrolling. Octavia used to do affirmations and manifestation in her journals and much of what she manifested for herself came true after she passed from the Earth realm. It’s a good reminder to keep going despite current circumstances. A body of work matters long after we leave, but maybe not my 6600 IG posts that Zuckenberger could delete on a whim.

My inner child LOVES Qveen Herby who is a majestic independent artist. She is EXACTLY who I needed in high school but sadly she was in Nebraska in elementary school. Second best is me learning from her now. She has a great podcast I’ve been listening to from start to current and she has a magnificent patreon and Discord fan community.

The two other people are folks I know in real life, mentors of mine. It’s important to be influenced by folks who can actually help you live the life you want to create.

In addition to focusing on these five women, I have been consuming content from Patreon creators I had been paying for but too full from IG stories to want to consume extra content. I’m also actually reading newsletters and blog posts from creators I value!

I can assure you–I put more energy into my blog posts and patreon work than I do an IG caption! I believe that to be true for most creators.

NEED FOR ATTENTION!

Attention is a neutral human need! Most of us were deficient in childhood from the kind of gentle loving attention we needed. My inner child reminded me I needed to make sure I was getting that need met.

Discord is a great social media site for communities. It’s WAY BETTER than FB groups and I’m in several active Discords. I get to banter back and forth with folks which is scratching the itch of DMs on IG. I get some news articles and discussions about the world from Discord!

I have a Discord for my aerobics class/ patreon supporters and in it I made a little diary as an alternative to IG stories to talk about my dating life and other stuff I didn’t want “out there” on the wild internet. Behind a tidy paywall seemed correct. I’ve kept it up off and on for a couple years.

In this time away from IG stories I started posting the day to day life reflections I typically would put in IG stories on my Discord diary.

I can post little videos of me storytelling/reflecting and shots of the snow and my forest and gush about the swoon worthy video of Brandi Carlile saying “Yes, Femme” to a bossy Shania Twain during a recent duet. Like I literally can’t thank you internet enough for existing and bringing me moments like this!

There are about 3-5 folks from the Discord who read and react to my little posts and my discussions with them scratches the itch of DMs and hearts from IG stories! It’s all the attention I need!

And also, genuine connection comes from calling friends and I try for at least one call a day to a pal! I love catching up with old friends and making space to deepen my recent friendships! I’m a connector by choice, it is so good for my mental health!

CHEAP DOPAMINE FROM SCROLLING!

Okay, yeah, I’m intentional but there is something to the blinging blinging of IG. (I noticed how much our local casino I walked through with Mom & her spouse on the way to a restaurant for dinner last week felt like the energy of IG/FB that I was missing out on.)

I am loving Substack as a way to get depth and good info from smart people (a lot of my IG favs are on Substack). You can “subscribe” to folks and get their blog posts sent to your email. It feels like old school Live Journal in that way.

The Substack app offers a “notes” feature and you can “follow” people on the app and see their notes pop up. (You don’t get emails from them–that’s only if you “subscribe” to someone.)

The notes reminds me of Threads and original IG when it was just pictures and captions. Since Substack offers paid subscriptions and easy sharing of posts I think it’s more effective than IG.

By the way IG takes a third of the money creators are paid for subscriptions and Substack takes 15%.

Scrolling substack notes scratches the itch I like about scrolling and I feel like it’s easy to stop when I’m satisfied–under ten minutes.

Blue Sky is like that as well. And some of my fav IG creators are putting their Reels on You Tube shorts and I appreciate that! I don’t want to miss out on what they are creating, but I’m willing to in order to deprive Mark Zuckenberger from my attention. He is literally the WORST business parter I’ve ever had!

The Finch app has been giving me the opportunity to, as my Discord pal Tai said, “trade self care tasks for dopamine” and I’m loving it. It’s Blingy Blingy! (I turned off the noise, though.) Two weeks into it and I’m excited to “eat the frog” of my care and work tasks so I can feed the bird. Join me? Our lil pets can be friends. (Friend code: 71771S18197)

Leaving something I was spending two hours on a day has been a challenge but I’m glad I did it! Next up I’ll reflect on my strategy as a creator to take my storytelling away from Zuckenberger and still connect to potential new clients for my aerobics, readers for my blog and listeners to my podcast.

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Welcome back to my series of Simple Self Care–invest five minutes in feeling way better. I’m also writing posts about inner child healing (both of those links send you to the tag for those series)!

We teach what we most need to learn and when I started teaching Fat Kid Dance Party aerobics it was healing my bullied left out middle school inner child. It’s now a modality that I’ve designed to connect to whoever of your inner child roster needs your attention!

This time last year I was anticipating a season of extreme grief. My only pet, my familiar, my Feline Overlord: Biscuit Reynolds was shifting towards his transition. I’ve read The Body Keeps the Score, I know we hold onto feelings we don’t make space for.

Our hips are big landing spots for feelings, so I figured a before bed hip opener would be good. My friend and ganja yoga instructor Tamara suggested I do a long supported child’s pose. It’s so easy for me to just do it on the bed before I hit the hay.

Typically I turn on my Gentle Hours playlist on shuffle, go outside and between 30 seconds and 5 minutes of stargazing and prayer, then head to bed and whatever song is playing is what I do child’s pose.

My friend Manduh lead an inner child meditation at a Goddess Sisterhood virtual retreat that brought us into a room to visit our inner child, I saw it as a room inside a tree trunk, so I tend to go into the tree for this visualization.

At every aerobics class I lead a visualization where we become a tree and invite our inner child to play by the tree. There really isn’t a wrong way to do it other than choosing not to do it and ignore our inner little one.

I’m looking for 1. How old is my inner child presenting today? 2. What is she wearing? 3. What is she doing or what does she need from me? I might ask “What do you need from me, little one?” in my most compassionate tone.

WOW HOW MUCH WORK I HAVE DONE AROUND MY INNER VOICE IN 15 YEARS.

My first life coach tried to get me to talk to my inner child with compassion and I truly could NOT speak to myself with compassion. Healing takes way longer than I expect and it’s better to just start, I’m so glad I started messy and inconsistent. And now I check in with my inner child many times a week. And give her what she needs!

Last week when I was first off Instagram, my inner child was around 2-3 years old and she needed “Attention.” Attention is a human need and kids really need a lot of it! And when you’re raised in poverty with a single mom there’s not a lot of adult attention available. As a result we have this wound that needs tending later in life when we reparent our little ones.

My inner child’s ask for attention caused me to make extra sure with my time no longer on Instagram Stories (an addiction I’m recovering from) to meet my need for attention. I’ve found outlets! I love my interactive Discord communities and I have a couple friends who read, react and comment in my Discord diary which is really scratching the itch I was getting from IG stories and DMs. Join my Patreon and get into our self care supportive Discord community!

Anyway, you don’t need to do a hip opener to do an inner child check in at bedtime, but I find the two in one habit has a lot of benefits. And habit stacking it with my bedtime wind down has been really helpful!

I talk more about my daily routines to bring me back to my peace in episode 190 of my podcast!

Stay tuned to this space for more inner child healing resources–I have a list I’m excited to share!

Want to get emails with new blog posts and podcasts? Subscribe to my substack!

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