rough session…rough day

MB and I had out weekly session today and for some reason it was a rough one. I think the more we dig the more shit we dig up the the harder it is to face. I am working so hard every single day and sometimes it feels like I have made zero progress – it’s so frustrating.

I have spent the past 23+ years angry and hating myself because of what OTHER people put into my head. Now the only problem is that it is now programmed into my head and I can’t seem to turn it off. It plays over and over and the voices are just there constantly feeding into every single ounce of self doubt that I have and no matter how hard I try and combat them I can’t seem to win. I fight and I fight and I fight and I never win.

I told MB today that the never ending cycle of trying to better myself feels like I am a hamster on a wheel. I spin and I spin and I never get anywhere. I’ve done diets upon diets…I’ve done it healthy, I’ve done it not healthy, I’ve done pills and I’ve done gyms and she said “well then what do you think you should do” and I said “get off the fucking wheel.” I was surprised at how quickly I responded to that. I told her I never thought of doing nothing..my life has always felt as though there were limits put on it when it came to my weight and eating. The idea of continuing with cooking, working out on my bike but not putting that pressure on myself to have it “change my life” I dunno…it hit me hard.

MB loves to timeline things out – this is both good and bad for me. Good because I have to face a lot of fucking facts that frankly I wouldn’t be nearly as fucked up as I am right now and bad for the same reasons lol. I can’t blame my mom for it all though – I have to be partially responsible. I could have spoken up sooner, I knew it was wrong to cut, i knew thinking about killing myself was wrong but I never had someone I could reach out to. I have that now and I have people in my life who don’t give a shit about what I weigh, what I look like or what I wear. I have people in my life that just love me for who I am: flaws and all. I can’t even love all the flaws yet and somehow they do. That kind of a gift? that is something that you can’t repay.

Before I leave my sessions MB always asks the same question “can you stay safe until I see you next” and USUALLY I’m pretty quick to say ‘YES’ but today, today she knew I wasn’t myself. I paused for a few seconds and said (not looking at her) “I’m fine” and since MB knows me back from when I was seeing E and doing DBT group she knows “I’m fine” is not really fine. We talked about finding out some health news about my mom and what feelings that brought up for me and the fact that I have my stress test on Friday and she knows how I am struggling with the decision I will eventually be faced with: having an ultrasound to determine my heart valve size or not having it. I thought a LOT of my uncle K today. He was just on my mind. He died so young and I wonder what HE would have done. I miss him so much.

So to avoid all these feelings I came home and ate some dinner – I wasn’t in a real cooking mood so I had just picked up some chicken from the grocery store already cooked. I had an urge to cook a little while ago and so I decided to make little mini apple pies (using a pumpkin pie mold I got from Crate and Barrel) and they actually turned out pretty yummy!!

Before Cooking

After Cooking

I think I will have to make these again.

For now I am going to relax and head off to bed. Goodnight all.

learning to find my balance…

So after several consecutive days on the bike I took today off…my knees were starting to bother me and I know I need to listen when my body is telling me I am pushing myself too hard. I burn approx 630+ calories every time I get on the bike and I don’t eat all that much (not on purpose I just find that I never have the time lol) and so I am hoping this new found outlet brings me mental clarity and the chance to shed some MUCH needed pounds.

MB (my therapist) and I have been dealing with my body image issues. This is a topic that I am struggling with on many levels. I’m not doing any of the DBT skills work in my therapy with MB so I am trying to keep those skills in the forefront as I deal with some of these issues that are deeply rooted.

Lately I find myself finding it harder and harder to hide the stuff I have going on from coming out in destructive ways. I have gotten so good at being able to let things go, to be able to table my personal issues and keep it out of work but lately it’s becoming so hard. I find myself getting defensive for no reason, angry and upset at the little things and more and more my mind is going to self harm first and I am not able to focus on anything else. I even contemplated calling a suicide hotline the other day because I was so down. I ended up crying myself to sleep but the idea of a suicide hotline used to scare me…this time is sounded like a comfort. I don’t want to die and yet it’s sometimes the ONLY thing I can think about.

I am usually able to handle the stresses of my job (mostly) with ease but lately I feel like nothing I do is right, nothing I say is right and regardless of how hard I work and how hard I push myself it doesn’t matter. The problem is ME. I think these things and people can tell me over and over again the truth but my mind can’t focus on anything but the negative and false reality it seems to have cultivated. It’s like my brain is stuck in this fucked up loop of bullshit and no matter how much I try and reign myself back to reality I can’t get off the ride. I am taking some time off coming up – I need to be able to regroup and let myself decompress from the everyday crap that I can usually shrug off but as of late am only able to obsessively focus on.

I wish it was easier for me to be able to ride out the bad waves. Sometimes I can do it with ease but the past week or so it has felt like I am drowning in this wave. I come up for air and get sucked back down. It’s exhausting to fight the wave. I know I can’t falter, I can’t fall back into my old patterns and yet I can feel myself doing it. I committed myself to getting through this, for trying to live with borderline.

During my session with MB I confessed to her that I had tried to reach out to E but her email was no longer valid. She said “I am so glad you brought that up – she and I were emailing back and forth and she wanted me to share something with you”. A part of me was scared to hear what MB was going to say next or maybe I had just convinced myself that E left and didn’t give a shit about me or my quest for wellness. What MB said next brought happy tears to my eyes. She said that E got the job she had wanted and that she felt terrible but that for some reason she was never able to access her email when she left. She said she would be in contact with me when her new work email was up and running. As happy as I was…I felt like a complete and total asshole. I doubted one of the only people in my life who ever really cared and took an interest in helping me get better. She didn’t forget me…MB said she clearly thinks about me and that bond means something. How could I so quickly dismiss it? how could I think she would abandon me?

How do you guys handle the harder times? What things are you able to do to help you from self destructing?

On a lot of days my borderline just seems like another little piece of who I am and on other days it feels like that is the ONLY thing I am. That kind of back and forth to my emotional mind can be extraordinary difficult to manage and on the days where I can’t seem to focus on anything except the negative it can be so scary. Sometimes I worry I will cut again, sometimes I worry that the urges to drive my car into a lamp post will be so intense that I won’t be able to find a way to save myself. I know it probably sounds dramatic and over the top – sometimes I can’t find a middle ground…like I only have 2 ways to think. High or Low. No middle or common ground.

I need to find that balance. I need to believe that I have it deep inside me. Some days that is easier to believe than others – I just have to keep cleaning my lens and focusing on the things that matter, the important things in my life. I HAVE things to live for, I have people I care about and people who care about me…the ability to get through it is in me, I just have to dig a little deeper to find it.

Happy Friday everyone and thanks for listening!

 

Tears, fears and abandonment

I tried to email E this week…we had an agreement that I could email her and she might not respond. I was and AM fully okay with that plan. We agreed on it in my very last session with her because she didn’t want me to feel abandoned. The problem? Her email is no longer valid.

hello feelings of abandonment…it’s been awhile…I haven’t missed you.

I cried myself last night feeling so alone. I knew E and I wouldn’t really be “friends” once she left but knowing I had the ability to still reach out made it feel a lot less scary. It helped to know even if she never responded that she was out there still somehow connected to me. Now? Now it is just a void. An empty hole.

I know it’s dramatic, I know it doesn’t make sense. A loss is a loss…so I have to grieve it.

In our last session she gave me a book. A book that meant a lot to her a book that now means a lot to me. I can’t even look at it without crying. It’s practically soaked in my tears right now. I trusted her with pieces I had never even fully admitted to myself before. My dark secrets. The first person to not give a shit about the bad but dug deep inside to pull out the good I still had hidden deep inside. The good I didn’t even know I had anymore.

Maybe I rely too much on others. Maybe I just suffocate those who take the time to get to know me.

I cried all day today. A mix of tears really. J sent me a really frank email that gave me reason to cry happy tears for her, proud tears for her but also tears that made me sad for me. She has so much on her plate, things she needs to work out on her own and her own demons to face. But like most things in order to help her our friendship needs to take a back seat and the creative endeavors we constantly work on will cease for awhile. I’m sad for me because maybe I used those creative endeavors as a crutch, perhaps I wasn’t getting better just finding better ways to hide? I cried happy tears for her and proud tears for her because it was so brave of her to admit what she needs to do. I couldn’t be any prouder to know her let alone have her in my life.

Am I the monster? Am I the reason why everyone leaves? What will it take to find some stability, to have a life? I ruin everything good. All I ever wanted in life was to feel like I mattered and yet when I find people in my life who make me feel like it I push them away and run scared. Those people deserve better than what I give back. I can’t apologize anymore for who I am and what I put people through.

I might not be fully broken but I certainly don’t feel like I could ever be whole. I believed E when she said I could reach out to her, that she would still be there even if she didn’t respond. Maybe the truth is she IS still there for me but right now? right now the tears flow faster than they have in a long time.

It’s funny. After years of not ever being able to cry, of thinking I had no tears left…lately? they don’t stop. Is it possible to drown in tears?

a photo to reflect on

It has been a long time since I have posted. I have lots to say and finding less and less time to say it all. I plan on making time to keep this site updated even if it is just a few sentences. I owe it to myself not to quit yet another thing in my life.

My littler sister L got married this past weekend. It was beautiful. It was in a remote location with no cell service and no internet. I have to admit the idea of ‘unplugging’ was hard for me since I constantly check my work email but it was surprisingly nice. I got to sit on a dock (we couldn’t swim because of leeches 😦 oh well) and take in the beautiful and incredible few days.

Here is a picture of that little piece of heaven.

Makes you wish you were there huh? I know I’d like to go back there. The sky at night…you could see the stars go on forever. Magical doesn’t even seem like the right word to describe it. I spent most of my younger years looking forward to the day when I no longer lived in the country and had the “city life” and now that I have gotten that part of my life out of my system? the country life is exactly what I need.

Sometimes I feel guilty that I never saw all the beauty that it held before but I know in order to appreciate it the way I do now I needed to take some time away from it. Even still…the twinkle of those stars brought me back to a time in my life when things felt simple, less chaotic. In this place time stood still. This place touched a part of my heart that I had closed off – it has helped me realize a lot of things. Some of those things I will share here and some are too personal to share just yet. But when the time is right I will.

It has been over two weeks since I have seen M for a session…it has been super hard but good for me to find my own footing, deal with the daily ups and downs without the constant need for a professional to help me see the correct way to deal with things. I am sort of proud of myself for doing that, for getting through it all and not losing it. The waves come and go and I need to learn to ride them better but I am slowly but surely getting to a place where I am able to make that happen.

Who knows what tomorrow brings…I hope you guys will still be here to join me on this crazy ride.

The end isn’t always the end…

Tomorrow is the big day – my LAST official session with E.

I, for the first time in my life, completed a task that was super important to me for someone else. I finished E’s painting, matted and framed it. I PRAY she likes it.

It’s hard to see in the picture but the color of the mat is a deep purple color – it helps bring out the purple in the sky and the colors in the shading on the petals.

I’m happy with how it looks. I’ve never really been happy with anything I’ve done…at least not happy enough to frame and give to someone as important to me as E. Don’t get me wrong I’ve given J tons of my stuff but I’ve never done something specifically for someone else…it’s extraordinarily personal.

Anyways…I will let you know what she says after my session with her…my last session 😦 The daily meditation for yesterday July 13th

See the snow on the Desert

I drove through Arizona’s petrified forest, a land where dinosaurs once roamed, then headed across the painted desert. A light dusting of snow covered the sane and shrubs. I felt both awe and surprise at the scene nature had created.

Nature does many things. Tornadoes blow across the land. Hurricanes pound the shores. Bolts of lightning streak through the sky. Dust storms fill the air. Nature petrifies wood, turning tress into beautiful crystal rocks, glowing with brilliant red and orange fossilized patterns. Nature takes centuries to carve bridges out of stone, using only wings and rains and the flow of water from other rocks. And sometimes, she puts snow on the forest.

Many things happen in our lives. Some of them are probable, consequential. Some of them are fluke and seem to come out of the blue, from nowhere. All the events work into a pattern, helping to create us, create our path through life, create our destiny. Sometimes we’re influenced greatly by a traumatic storm. Other times seemingly chance occurrences can change the entire pattern and course of our lives.

We don’t have to understand everything. Maybe we aren’t supposed to. We don’t have to be prepared for all the storms. Sometimes the greatest learning occurs when we’re caught off guard, by surprise.

Weather the storms. Let them pass. Keep your balance, as best you are able. Remember to be flexible and sway with the winds like the tall tress in the forest. Trust the flukes, too, those moments when it snows on the desert. Let destiny have its way with you.

Well if this isn’t EXACTLY what I needed to read.

E was my snow on the desert.

It wasn’t going to be there forever but the time it was there was wonderful.

She taught me to look outside the box, she taught me how to react and communicate with people better.

Her time in my life was for a reason.

She was here to teach me something just as my friendship with J, MM and JS have taught me.

I don’t know what the future holds but I whatever it is I will get through it: the good, the bad and the ugly.

I know I will get through it because of the friendships I have now and because I have the skills E taught me (and that will stay with me).

Tomorrow is going to be extremely difficult emotionally but I will get through it.

ch-ch-ch-changes

Clear the path to your heart

I watched Old Faithful from my window. The geyser gurgles and spewed a low layer of steam. Then true to its name, Old Faithful erupted and sprayed thousands of gallons of steaming water into the air. Right on time.

A full range of gurgling emotions, reactions, and responses to life line the pathway to the heart. We need to feel them all – anger, hurt, sadness, irritations – in order to feel joy. To experience life and all its wonders, we must embrace all these feelings.

We need to experience the little angers as well as the big hurts, the painful wounds that life sometimes brings. To insist that we will only feel pleasant emotions means we’re blocking the pathway to the heart. We’re ignoring all the other gurgling emotions that need to be felt.

All our emotions are important; all need to be recognized. The energy of each needs to be acknowledged and released. This clears the way for love. All the emotions that precede love clear the heart so it’s pure and free to feel joy.

Trust your emotions. All of them. You’re not off the path. They lead to the path you’re seeking. They are the journey to the heart. Let them flow freely. And sure as Old Faithful, your heart will come gleaming, shining through.

Taken from ‘Journey to the Heart’ by Melody Beattie

I wonder about this sometimes. I wonder why I have such a hard time allowing myself to feel all the emotions and why I let myself be angry when I feel the ones I don’t want to feel.
I spent a fair amount of time with E today talking about my progress.
I have learned a LOT in the past year – I have done a TON of work on myself.
I am learning how to adapt and adjust in times of change.
I am learning how to listen to myself (and my body).
I am learning how to ask for help and admitting that I can’t ALWAYS “do it all”.
And while I learn these things I also learn that it is OKAY.

Radical acceptance that there are a lot of things I cannot change – things that are just out of my control.
I need to find ways to adapt and adjust and I AM doing that now.
I am learning how to speak up and communicate in the proper ways.
I am learning how to BE.

Monday is my last session.
I know that I am ready for the next chapter – she referred to it as me “graduating” to a more intense therapy.
She thinks I am ready too.
I am nervous, excited, scared and sad about it.
I wish she didn’t have to leave but I KNOW that she is going to go off and do amazing things and help lots of people just like me.
I am grateful to have her in my life.

We talked about how “ending” relationships are different for me now.
How now I am allowing myself to see the lessons in the relationships and not just the negative.
We talked about S & K (two past friendships that ended very badly) and how I closed myself off so much and by doing so I also closed off the good memories.
By putting up the walls that I did I didn’t allow myself to look back and see all that I learned from them – I denied myself that opportunity because I thought I was protecting myself.
I’m not doing that this time…and that is a big step for me.

We talked about how much time I spend at J’s place and how I feel so at peace there.
She suggested that I bring a digital recorder and record some of the sounds so I can incorporate them into my “meditation time”. The sounds of nature, the river, the birds, the breeze…it all feels so comfortable to me…so peaceful, like time stands still.
And I thought that was a GREAT idea so I have asked J if I can do this. I hope she says yes but will completely understand if she says no.

I think I am allowing my sadness of E leaving to be projected onto my painting for her. I hate so much how it looks right now.
I will still be giving it to her, framing it and in our last session we are going to have cupcakes and “create”.
She asked me what I wanted to do and I said that “art” was something that was really important to me and I wanted to share it with her.
She is stepping outside her “box” for it so that makes me kind of smile 🙂

I’m back

It’s been weeks and weeks since I have posted last and I have to apologize for just halting all my posts.

Things at work have been…crazy to say the least.

One of the (many) problems that I have is: I am a workaholic. I love the people I work with, I enjoy my job and I appreciate all the opportunities I have been given over the past year and a half. M has only been cleared to come back to work for 4 hours a day and at one point last week MM was out sick twice and one day JS had to leave early! I feel like I have been taking on the brunt of the work. I NEVER could have done that a year ago – fuck I couldn’t have done that 6 months ago but I think I did a fantastic job handling the stress. E is baffled as to how long I am going to be able to do this and she has every reason to wonder that – on Tues night I hit the wall. I crashed into that wall at 100 miles an hour and lost it.

I am noticing that when the good days last longer and longer when I finally hit the wall it feels like I am hitting it harder than I ever have, does anyone else experience this? With work, my sessions with E are getting more and more intense and I even took on a big project at work as well (which has since ended – thank GOD!). I also found out that M graduated with the one person in my life that I will never see again. She knew B, she knew her and grew up with her! I had finally made peace with the fact that mom wasn’t going to share with me any aspect of that part of our lives. Mom likes control. I wasn’t allowed to mourn B’s passing, I wasn’t allowed to visit her grave and she has NEVER once told me where B is buried….and all of that changed with me asking M one question. My entire world felt like it was spinning, it was like opening up this Pandora’s box of feelings and emotions that I forgot I had, that I forgot I could feel. I was comforted that someone else knew her but sad and upset that I still felt abandoned by her. It felt as if my skin was peeled back and I was completely exposed, raw, naked and flooded with memories of B and the short time she was a part of our lives. I felt like I was 10 years old again, my childhood gone, my reality forever changed…the wound that finally started to heal was ripped wide open and the flooding of emotions couldn’t be stopped.

Among all of this craziness I also had the chance to celebrate one year of seeing E! I couldn’t believe it. The girl who never ever wanted to be in therapy just celebrated one year with her therapist! E was so sweet – at my session she brought me a cupcake and got me a water bottle from the MoMa 🙂 I am going to be so sad when she finally leaves. I have to keep telling myself that she is going to help so many others out there like me, that she is going to do great and wonderful things and I am hopeful that there will be a chance to somehow keep in touch with her once she leaves. I know she has come into my life for a season – to help save me, to help me discover pieces of myself and to be the first to listen to all of my secrets. Saying good-bye isn’t one of the things I do the best but she has assured me that she is going to see me through the transition to my new therapist MB.

For the most part I really have been on an up-swing and the crash I had…well that was a long time coming I think. I rode the wave, I felt the feelings and I got through it. I know E is right, I know I need to do DBT again and I most likely will but I am still trying to weigh my pros and cons. I know that I want to move up in my job and J has given me some GREAT feedback about seeing me as Leadership potential and so I know that by doing another round of DBT it won’t only be good for me personally and emotionally but it will also help me professionally in “climbing” the latter so-to-speak.

J has been helping me find other creative outlets in gardening. She has this green thumb that I can’t explain and watching her seedlings go to full blown flowers? fucking nothing cooler than that. So I bought myself a cute little plant that totally inspired the shit out of me and then started growing some seedlings of my own out on my fire escape at my apartment. It acts as this lesson about how I need to treat myself as I treat the seedlings…patience, nurturing, tenderness, attention. It makes so much sense when you apply this to the plants and yet somehow I struggle so deeply with trying to apply it to my own life…why is that? why is it that I never ever seem to put as much care into myself as I do with my work, my art and the things around me?

There have been many nightly meditations over the past few weeks – some that have touched me greatly, some that acted as harsh reminders and others that I don’t think (at this moment in time) apply to me. I am still reading them every night, I am still trying to find meaning in them and I share them with J and I think (and hope) she gets as much out of them as I do. The more I get to know of her the more I feel connected to her…like she is my sister. I know that sounds silly but the friendship really does feel that deep to me. She and E have both agreed to meet (just to say hello) before E leaves – I want the two most influential people in my life to meet each other. It won’t be a session or anything – I just want them to meet since I talk about them to each other ALL the time. I am so thrilled they both agreed.

I will leave you with today’s actual meditation. If you want to know what some of the other days meditations were I would be happy to share them with you in the comments section 🙂

Love yourself enough to Relax

Our bodies react to the world around us – and within us – in many ways. Our bodies act like sponges – they can soak up healing energy or they can absorb and trap the negative energy of stress and tension. Some of us are so used to keeping our bodies tense and bound up we don’t even notice how much they hurt, how strained and tight our muscles are.

Connect with your body. Learn to tell how tense it is. Take a few moments throughout the day to see what hurts, what aches, what muscles are being strained. Although tension can affect the entire body, many of us have favorite places in our body to store stress, places that usually become tense, rigid, and full of aches. Necks, shoulders, lower backs are favorite traps. Become familiar with your body and where it stores stress and tension.

Then, learn to relax. Explore different options. Therapeutic massage. Self-hypnosis. Meditation. Soaking in a hot bath. Sitting in the steam room. Exercise. Visualization. Taking time to do activities that bring you pleasure. If you make the effort to explore relaxation techniques, you will find ways to relax that you like and can afford.

If you’ve been soaking up too much stress, give yourself a break. Let your body start soaking up some healing energy, too. Love yourself enough to help your body relax.

This is one I have actually been practicing today. Relaxing. Taking a hot shower. Watching TV. Painting. I used to have such an issue with allowing myself to take the time for myself. I used to feel lazy and guilty. I have been reading a book that J lent me called “View from a Sketchbook” and enjoying it a lot. There is something about how the way they describe the world around, the prairie, the things they see and witness. I dunno…it’s almost poetic.

I am feeling a little blocked on the creative front which is a little frustrating for me but I checked on my little sprouts this morning, curled up in my chair, watched some more Dexter and fully let myself take comfort in doing whatever it is I feel like. I am coming to the deeper realization that I’m not the same person anymore.

I left home as soon as I graduated high school because I never felt like I belonged, I never appreciated the quiet, I never appreciated any of it. Now that I am back…now that I feel like I am a person that is worth living…I don’t know…it is like I appreciate it all far more than I ever imagined. Coming back here was a leap of faith, one final stitch effort to find meaning in what felt like my entire meaningless existence. What I actually found was so much more…hope, family, faith, friendship. Things I don’t ever want to lose again.

I have so many to thank for that. So when I am crashing in the waves I remember that I am not alone. I have people who are there to help me back up and make sure that I never drown.

I leave you with a 4 leaf clover I am growing and my little sprouts (as I call them :))

(c) borderlinemusings 2013

feeling content

So now that I have had a day to reflect back to where I was 24 hours ago – I can honestly say I am feeling content. I had a session with E today, which was emotionally charged and I spent a good portion of it crying (and I hate crying) but I think it was all necessary and I think instead of fighting it like I typically do I need to learn to allow the feelings and let them go. I went to the store and picked up some dinner and when I was into my apartment I had this overwhelming sense of peace and comfort. Everything is clean, smells wonderful and makes me feel 100% at home – I didn’t think I could feel more at home but I totally do. I don’t think I will ever allow myself to get to a place where I don’t keep this place the way I have it now…I am proud of how good it looks, how much work I put into it (even though I am the reason it was a mess in the first place) and I am okay with it.

I have candles (well they are the walmart version of Scentsy lol) going in the kitchen, living room and bathroom so my entire apartment smells like cookies 🙂 I still have a fair amount of work to do in the walk in closet and bedroom but honestly I am so proud of the work I have done and I keep adding stuff to my calendar so I don’t let ANYTHING fall off my radar.

I got some stuff out of tonight’s meditation so I will post that with my thoughts before I head off to bed 🙂

Listen to the voice of your heart

Cultivate the art of listening to your intuition, your inner voice. This is the guidance of your heart. It’s a voice that speaks differently from the one in your head. The heart whispers softly, the head prattles loudly.

The head has an agenda for our lives. It chatters away boldly, but its vision is limited. It leaves no room for the mysterious workings of the universe, nor does it take into account the side trips we need to get where we’re going, where our souls need to go. It’s the voice that says, This is the way it’s going to be.

The heart, the inner voice, speaks differently. Sometimes it whispers. Sometimes it pulls. Sometimes it pushes. It’s spontaneous, in the present moment, and often a surprise. The heart takes into account what has to be done and the best way to do that. The heart takes emotions into account – the way you feel, the wisdom of your soul. The heart leads us into and through the lessons we’re here to learn.

Cultivate your inner voice. Practice listening to the whispers of your heart. Practice trusting your intuition, what you really feel, what you really know. Practice until that voice is the one that you hear.

Be patient. Be gentle. Let yourself learn to hear the gentle and trustworthy words of your heart.

Taken from ‘Journey to the Heart’

This is something that I am just learning to do – learning to trust the voice, trust the whispers, trust my heart and intuition. It has been a long time coming and I think I still have a long ways to go but I think I am finally getting better at it. I think when it came down to confronting Dr F about her group I was finally able to allow my heart to be louder then my head. I was able to do it in a way that I was happy with, a way where I felt good about myself…that was important and a HUGE step for me (not even a baby step) and I think it was because the skills are starting to make sense.

I did something stupid and googled what could happen with my summons and that is like googling “Headache” and seeing brain tumor (long story short I was pulled over and my license had been expired for a month ’cause I stupidly forgot to renew it and I got a summons vs a ticket) E even laughed when I told her I was scared I was going to jail. And yes it SOUNDS stupid and silly I know that but I was reading all these horror stories about how people went to jail for stuff like this and I freaked the fuck out – I was in full panic mode – I reached out to her and she didn’t answer, I tried deep breathing, I tried opposite to emotion, I tried calling the prosecutor again but nothing worked…she literally had to spend 5 minutes (once she called me back) trying to get me to deep breathe – I felt like this complete failure. Here I was feeling GOOD about the progress I had made and the moment I celebrate it I can’t even make it through the ridiculousness of me going to jail over driving with my license that was expired…ugh it FELT like such a setback even though I know deep down it wasn’t. 6 months ago I wouldn’t have even THOUGHT to use skills…that was a step even if it felt like a backwards one.

I think my head was so content with being miserable that even though my place was a mess it was like screw it…does that make sense? And once I was in a good mindset and J and I talked it was like I was able to hear my inner voice more – that I was able to hear the importance to ME why I wanted my apartment clean. I am sitting here in my clean and beautiful apartment and feeling far more at peace here then I have in awhile. I have a reminder to go off in a few to bring down a few more bags of trash but I have eaten dinner and cleaned those dishes already.

I think where I am emotionally right now (just with work, life, group ending, dealing with my 1 year with E, her eventually leaving, and so on…) I need to learn how to be patient and gentle with myself. Taking it all on and being fully okay with it, letting it go and breathing deep. It’s not easy BUT I am doing it and no matter how  SLOW it feels I need to cut myself some slack and realize that I am doing the best I can…and someone whom I respect and admire greatly once told me that my best was good enough.

 

sleep vs post…

and clearly I choose sleep but not consciously lol. What happened was I totally fell asleep on the couch as I was going to post last night lol. I woke up long enough to move from the couch to the bed and once my head hit the pillows I was out until my alarm! I guess I really needed the sleep…although I do wish I had the chance to post this last night.

Work is work…I was supposed to go up to my moms last night for her husbands bday dinner but I had a KILLER migraine and called to let them know I wouldn’t be able to make it. H, her husband, sounded a little upset that I wasn’t going to be there but migraines run in my family and I THINK my mom understood. This is one of the first times that I have cancelled and didn’t feel guilty about it lol so that is progress for me 🙂

I’m sorry this is being posted so late – I promise to make sure tonight’s gets posted in a timely manner 🙂

Last nights meditation:

Learn to listen to the silence

Driving into Yellowstone Park, I switched off the radio. The sun was setting. The mountains on either side of the road framed my view. Snowcapped mountains, their peaks touching the clouds, reflected the pear, pink and orange of the setting sun. The clouds were beginning to change color, the way they do at twilight. Evergreens lined the road. Some stood tall. Some stooped. Some bent, as if peeking at or beckoning the travelers on the road. The smell of pine gently filled the car.

Because I’d been driving all day, I had kept the radio on to keep me alert and entertained. Now, I shut it off. As I drove, I let the silence fill the car, fill my mind, fill my soul. Before long, the colors of the sunset began to almost sing. The trees, the mountains filled me with their energy, rhythm, vibration.

Certain sounds can be healing – music, the voice of a friend, the laughter of a child. But there are other times when we need to turn down the sound and listen to the silence. Silence can be healing, too.

As the sun set and I drove through the gates of Yellowstone Park, I realized this: the sounds of silence aren’t silent. Each creation that lives sings its own song. It takes a quiet mind, a quiet soul, a quiet heart to hear these songs.

Learn to listen to silence. Listen to the world around you. And the silence will sing you a beautiful song.

Taken from ‘Journey for the Heart’

 

I have been finding myself curling up in the chair J gave me every night with the window open and listening to the sounds of nature. I has become something I look forward to, almost like a meditation ritual of trying to center myself, trying to slow down from the day. My brain has been on overdrive for awhile and I am handling the work fine but I think my body isn’t happy with me lol. Last week it was 3 solid days of migraine and then today I got a BAD one…I’m sure it’s a combo of not eating enough calories to make up for what I am burning, the stress if being down a person at work, helping a co-worker with a HUGE project, trying to figure out how I am going to tackle telling Dr F about the disruption and frustration I have had with her group with using all my skills. I think my brain is just on overload. I am managing it all very well and I haven’t crashed into the wave yet but I think I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

E was so sweet when I told her next Friday is exactly one year since the first time I ever met her. She was like “seriously? Omg we need to do something” it makes me feel good (and sad) lol because I am going to miss her when she finally leaves. I know I still have my family J, JS, MM and M and that makes me feel a little better – they will NEVER leave me and E came into my life for a reason and that time is coming to an end. She will go off and help tons of other people just like me and hopefully I made an impression with her. I have to let her go so she can help others – and believe me she will.