TTT 25: Coping Mechanisms 🙃

What is Colloquial-Written Tamil? 🧐

I went to South Glastonbury, CT to visit my old buddy and his family. We smoked candied pork belly, pork tenderloin, and kielbasa in his backyard. Notable sides of corn bread and baked beans topped with rendered pork fat.

Hi Team,
மாலை வணக்கம் (maalai vaNakkam), Buenas Noches, and Good Evening from South Glastonbury, Connecticut.

I’ll be sharing a thing I did, a tweet I loved, and a thought I had.

A Thing

I published an essay titled Written-Colloquial Tamil.

It’s my unique perspective that it’s necessary to write down the colloquial form of Tamil to learn it abroad and asynchronously.

I only learned formal Tamil first, spoke it with my family, and then realized that it wasn’t as close to colloquial Tamil as I expected.

I live for the journey.

So happy you continue to choose to join me.

A Tweet

A gentle reminder to start smaller.

I love these reminders to start smaller.

Even last week’s Tamil video was only 3 sentences.

We think we need to write a book. But why not start with an essay? 

Or better yet - why not just a checklist?

A Thought

The bottle of pills stares back at me.

It says to take it with a meal. Another reminder to take care of myself.

My scalp had been hurting for months. I finally gave in and went to the dermatologist. He took a look at my scalp and prodded it. “OWWW” I exclaimed.

“Why’d he have to press so hard?” I thought.

“It looks like you have folliculitis.” He said matter of factly

“What does that mean?” I questioned.

“Do you keep your fingers in your head?” he inquired.

“Yes” I said meekly.

“Stop doing that. The bacteria from your fingers has infected the hair follicles. I’m going to write a prescription for antibiotics and some medicated shampoo”. He proclaimed

“I do stress-scratch my scalp. I do it when I’m solving tough problems. Sometimes I even do it in my sleep. I don’t even notice I’m doing it most of the time.” I told him

“Well, self-mutilation isn’t cute. It’s all about self-care” he quipped as he left the examination room.

I knew that the root cause of the issue was poorly managed stress.

No matter how many pills or shampoos he gave, unless I addressed the root cause, the folliculitis would return.

In the past, I’ve dealt with my stress in other unhealthy ways. In college, I stayed up til 5am programming operating systems and chain smoking cigarettes. After college, I quit cigarettes and started binge eating to soothe myself. In a 5 month time frame in early 2020, I put on 20 lbs (~15% body weight increase) while delivering a HIPAA compliant cloud platform at my job.

I only stopped binge eating 4 months ago. A full 6 months after my blood work came back trending in some undesirable directions.

Since then, I took another extreme pivot and started walking 30 miles a week. I put my phone on airplane mode and walk all the way to Brooklyn and back - hitting the Williamsburg, Manhattan, and Brooklyn bridges at least once a week.

And still, that wasn’t enough to keep my hands out of my head.

There are preventative ways to deal with stress. We can even be aware of our physical sensations and catch them in the moment. But more often than not, I’m focused on something and the stress of solving it sneaks up on me.

And the only type I have left is reactive.

I’ve been trying various different reactive coping mechanisms. Whether that’s a stress ball or gum. And neither of those were helpful.

But one thing that has helped me. I’ve been gently tapping on my collarbone while repeating this mantra “Even though I feel stress, I completely love and accept myself”.

A wave of relief washes up from my clavicle to my temples.

It reminds me that life is hard enough without my own self-judgment.

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I'd love to hear any feelings you felt while reading this and until next time - be easy.

With Love,
Janahan

P.S. You can reply directly to this email and I’ll get back to you :)