The Frequency Illusion & Doom Spirals

Mar 16, 2024

The video above is a throwback to spring 2022 with Mama Alaska days away from giving birth to Baby Dancer ❤️ And now 2 year old Dancer is a month away from having her own babies! I can't wait!

Happy Saturday friends!

A friend told me this week about how she has been expecting death for awhile now—she has had several deaths of both human and animal friends and it seems to be peering around every corner.

Boy can I relate.

Ever since Mom died, death seems to be everywhere and I worry about it often. I’m hoping it’s just the "frequency illusion" thing more than anything but it feels icky.

"The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, also called the frequency illusion, is a cognitive bias that affects how we think and process information. It's a phenomenon where something you recently learned seems to appear everywhere, making it feel like it's more common than it actually is."

A few months after Mom died I started cleaning up my diet and getting checkups, things I had been neglecting. B-Rad and I watched You Are What You Eat on Netflix. We’ve seen a lot of these types of shows through the years but there were new bits that we weren’t aware of and that I’ll be researching more on. Like the link between diet and Alzheimer’s and also "Group 1 Carcinogens." So we’ve been playing around with our food and since we are both doing it, it’s fun. I made these easy and delicious tacos. The next day B-Rad grilled those huge portobello mushroom caps like burgers and once they were hole side up like a bowl he stuffed them with a mix of gluten free breadcrumbs, pecorino Romano cheese (sheep cheese!), pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder. I’ve never had them as a burger substitute before but they were really yummy.

While being needed, I think the changing the diet thing is also a way of feeling like I have some semblance of control in my life.

But back to the frequency illusion (also known as the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon) and the feeling that my death and all my loved ones deaths are just around the corner…it is such a stress! Neurofeedback has been one way to lessen the feeling, spending time outside and just sitting with the animals is another way. And then, an idea that I’ve not thought about in a long time popped in—a GOD POP!

It was time to write a new 3 year plan! I haven’t done that since in years. We were required to do it as part of the Equine Gestalt Coaching program. The first one I did was my first year in the program, 2013. By 2016 I was living a large part of what I had written and it continued on until the pandemic hit. Then in the same year Mom was diagnosed with cancer and we were quickly making plans to move back to North Carolina.

So even though life got funky there for awhile, I know it works.

I started writing. You’re to write it as if you woke up 3 years later and are living that life. It’s such a fun exercise. Some people like to do the vision board thing but there is something very powerful about the written word. And you all know how wordy I can be :-) I’m continuing to add more to the document and it brings so much joy to my life right now! I had forgotten the way it feels in my body. That excitement feels like fizzy joy and I can already feel things shifting to meet up with that joy. When the doom spirals start happening, I'm getting faster at thinking about what I'd like the future to be.

I started writing about my health and what it will be like in 3 years. I wrote about my business: coaching, neurofeedback, reiki, art and how it will have grown by leaps and bounds and on and on, with lots of fun details that made me excited.

And guess what? I didn’t think about death the entire time. And the happy feelings lasted way beyond the writing of it—so I just keep adding to it when I need a boost!

In thinking about the frequency illusion, it's not just the new things we learn that pop up all the time, it's whatever we are focusing on and feeling anxiety about. So, when death happens, we are focused on that, and that's all that we see. When we flip that, and start forward focusing, those are the things that appear. You know, manifesting and all that jazz :-)

To that end, let's talk about the Women's Group I'm starting in the spring! For those of you who are thinking about it, would you answer these questions for me:

1. What interests you most: 4 weeks, 6 weeks, 8 weeks?

2. Are you only interested in an in-person group, an online group, or either?

3. If in-person, would you prefer daytime or evening hours?

4. If online, would you prefer daytime or evening hours?

5. What is your biggest fear for attending a weekly group?
a) fear of strangers/talking about your life to strangers?
b) fear of art/perfectionism/newbie?
c) fear of committing to how many weeks the group is held?
d) fear of being out at night?
e) I'm a little nervous about new things but I've been following you for awhile and I can't wait!

Just reply to this email to tell me you are interested and/or to answer questions! THANK YOU!

•••

We watched the Oscars this year because ManChild was absolutely enthralled with Oppenheimer. He and B-Rad went to go see it as intended, in IMAX when it first came out. ManChild raved so much that we bought it which is how I saw it. I tried something new since it was 3 hours long: we watched half of it one night and half the next. It was great to break it up like that! 3 hours is soooo long for a movie! If you haven't seen it yet, it's worth it and is actually the story of Oppenheimer and his struggle with having created the bomb. The music was incredible! I gave the movie an 8 and 4 of those points came from the music.

The best reason to watch the Oscars is to find out what movies we want to see. I'm looking forward to renting: Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon, American Fiction. What others have you seen and recommend?

•••

THE RANCH

Not my photo below but I saw my first Osprey of the year this week! I went to look it up and found that the osprey can come into one's life to emphasize the value and healing properties of the sun and are a symbol or vision and abundance!

And check out her big ol' udder! I've not seen one like this on a new mom, and she's still a month out! I've asked on my goat group and the response was: it's normal and that each goat is different. Good, I was a little concerned it meant she had a zillion babies in there!

Itty bitty Johnny Jump Ups in the pasture:

I used to think that these little cone shaped things were baby pine cones. Ha. Nope. They are where all the pollen comes from and all the pines are getting ready to coat the state in yellow. Gack.