Figuring it out as I go

Unarmored

By Rooze McKelvey | September 23, 2024November 9, 2024 by Rooze McKelvey

I pause on “unarmored,” uncertain if it is a word. My brain wants to say “disarmored,” like “disarmed,” but that isn’t right.Unarmed is without weapons. Vulnerable. Like walking into conflict, arms outspread. The place of “Let’s find another way. Together.” Disarmed is to have one’s weapons taken away or incapacitated in some manner—forced vulnerability. Rather than a sense of openness, it is a place of fear. The place of “What the fuck happens next?” and “Please, don’t hurt me.”So to be “unarmored” is to choose to be vulnerable. To be open to the world. To find another way.

A Life Disordered Autism

Shifting Gears: Understanding My Autistic Mind

By Rooze McKelvey | July 12, 2024October 2, 2024 by Rooze McKelvey

Realizing that I’m autistic is like unlocking a door to my own brain, my unique way of thinking and being in the world. It’s a relief, a moment of clarity that helps me make sense of decades of confusion and seeking. This is who I have always been and will always be. We can call it any number of things and indeed, have throughout my lifetime. Recognizing it as autism means I finally have the manual to how things work for me.

Living Microdosing Reality

The Anxiety List – Part One

By Rooze McKelvey | May 7, 2024October 2, 2024 by Rooze McKelvey

It’s almost 6 a.m., and I’m sitting in a cabin on a cliff at the edge of the Pacific Ocean. The relentless rain turns the tin-roofed cabin into an immersive acoustic experience—slightly like popcorn in a microwave but far more relaxing. Microwaving popcorn is stressful. The list of seemingly mundane activities that increase my anxiety would fill notebooks and far more therapy sessions than my FSA account would allow.

Healing Life Lessons

The Generous Heart: Sharing Joy

By Rooze McKelvey | February 29, 2024November 9, 2024 by Rooze McKelvey

Recently, I read the quote, “If something makes you happy, protect it.” On the surface, it makes complete sense. People can be cruel, even with the best of intentions. And sharing something precious exposes it to ridicule, misunderstandings, and questions. Like the old saying about ships being safe in a port but meant for the sea, happiness can be kept safe by locking it away, but it is intended to be shared. It grows exponentially when given freely, without expectation, without an agenda.

Microdosing Reality

Heaven and Earth

By Rooze McKelvey | February 15, 2024November 9, 2024 by Rooze McKelvey

During meditation today, I felt myself in a heaven/earth moment with the universe. Akin to the Aikido movement of the same name, the moment pivoted on an exchange of energy. But instead of being thrown to the floor, the universe and I danced.

Microdosing Reality

What are the 5 best things you’ve learned about life?

By Rooze McKelvey | February 12, 2024October 2, 2024 by Rooze McKelvey

In a recorded seminar I watched today, the presenter asked: What are the five best things you’ve learned about life? Here’s my current list. What’s yours?

Grief Microdosing Reality

Grief & Self-Compassion

By Rooze McKelvey | February 8, 2024February 8, 2024 by Rooze McKelvey

Today the grief is pervasive. It shifts my body into some liminal plane between floating and groundedness. I place my hands on my heart and breathe until I feel them solidly there, feel their warmth, feel my heart beating.

Healing Living Microdosing Reality

What is found now is found then

By Rooze McKelvey | January 4, 2024November 9, 2024 by Rooze McKelvey

What would happen if we were to live now, present and grounded and authentically alive? What ropes would unwind from not only our own wrists but those of the people around us? What wounds would we never inflict upon others due to our own pain? What salve could our own healing provide?

Frameworks Goals Microdosing Reality

Lily Padding It

By Rooze McKelvey | January 2, 2024November 9, 2024 by Rooze McKelvey

Setting goals isn’t always the best approach, and certainly it isn’t for everyone despite the pervasiveness of it in our culture. One of my favorite alternative frameworks is the concept of “Lily padding it”, a phrase inspired entirely by Stephen Shapiro’s conversation with one of his friends during a time when he was trying to figure out his life plan…

Microdosing Reality

By Rooze McKelvey | December 19, 2023November 9, 2024 by Rooze McKelvey

It isn’t strength, necessarily, but strategy that has helped me be a mostly functional human in a mostly dysfunctional world. And by strategy I mean systems to pull me forward, habits and routines to keep me present, and intentional amnesia combined with selective disassociation to handle my history.