Posted on by damynx

Back to the Work

Taking the time off from working on what needs still to be done in my head was an excellent idea. I didn’t realize you can take a break from things like that. Well, I guess you can stop anything, even if it’s good for you, but the dedicated unceasing work is what has gotten me so far so fast. (Fast by the world’s standards, it’s been a long slog from where I’m sitting). But now, it’s back to the work. From the start of December I’ve been distracting myself with books I’ve listened to before (Harry Potter, Elantris, 14, Dragons Blood Omnibus), shopping and, of course, eating. It’s no longer and option to let my brain stand still with old stories, spending money I don’t have and eating myself into a coma. Standing still is a mixed blessing though. About 23 years ago I walked the Honolulu Marathon, and in a lot of ways getting my life back has been akin to that long hot day in December 2000. I did fine until mile 16 or so and then it felt like I was walking through amber. I kept putting one foot in front of the other then something in my brain snapped and said it was never going to end, I was never going to survive and I might as well give up now. That’s when I pulled out the Extra Strength Gu Gel with double the caffeine and choked it down with a few sips of water. I finished: I have the shirt and the medal to prove it too. So, instead of doing the Gu Gel at this 16 mile marker in my emotional marathon I did more of a rest and now I know why I didn’t rest in 2000….I wouldn’t have wanted to go back to it.

I have therapy on the 17th, so I’ll make that my official back-to-the-work day. I bought the physical book of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown so I can use it as a text book and make my own notes and how I want to apply his lessons. I got it with another book called Deep Work by Cal Newport in a packaged deal from Amazon. I’ve started my writing again, I get up at the same time (4:30ish) on the Saturday I have off during the month and write for about five hours and I try to do basic edit or input edits in the evening or on Sunday. It works, but if I can get more work done in the same space of time then I will. It too is a physical book but I might splurge and get the audio book as well so I can listen to it on my way into work during the week. From those books I want to write my New Years Goals so I can break them down into S.M.A.R.T. goals for monthly direction. But again, I need to get back to the work!

Though the work was at rest my mind was still aware of what I was doing right and very aware of what I was doing wrong. My eating spiraled a little more than usual but not to pre-apocalyptic levels which is good, but it was more out of control then my normal stress-eating. I couldn’t get full no matter how much I ate and I couldn’t easily talk myself out of buying the extra bag of oreos no matter how hard I tried. As I explained in An Act of Christmas I need to stay true to my ideal of Christmas and be more productive in doing what I can do to help in the world. Next Christmas will be more of what I want and need it to be by starting this month toward my Act of Christmas 2023. With the new year I feel calmer and more in control. The two packages of oreos remain on my shelf unopened on top of an unopened box of Godiva chocolate a patient gave me for Christmas. It could be I’ve just been too tired to walk the 20 feet to the shelf to get them but I’m counting it as a win. I’m cringing now at the money I spent on me over the last month but I feel it was for things I needed and wanted and not spending money I didn’t have on online police auctions every time my mother irritated me. I think what I’m trying to convey is that I’m better, but I’m not at the finish line. The work yet to be done, the deeper work I’ve been dreading are the big boxes in my dream from 22 July 2022 Dream a Little Dream my closing statement was, mostly pertaining to the boxes still on the shelf:

…(bravely confront the past injuries, resolve the confusion, and end the subconscious suffering to move forward).

Dream a Little Dream, Bloggingfromthevoid.com

I’ve identified the anger at my sisters is more of the anger of the child I abandoned (me) in trying to protect myself growing up. I’m not sure if that makes any sense, but the anger I feel toward my sisters feels immature and the fire from that anger too hot and plentiful to be that simplistic. I’ve started listening to the book by Thich Nhat Hanh Reconciliation instead of reading his Anger book because this realization of where the anger was coming from became apparent and more urgent as I was reading the book on Anger. In Dream a Little Dream I talked about how the boxes were things I didn’t want to deal with and still I don’t want to deal with . As my history of stuffing things I don’t want to deal with in boxes and paying an immoderate storage fee attests, I’m really good at avoiding things. The need to get passed the anger, the need to feel at peace with myself is starting to outweigh the need to just keep the abandoned child placated with cookies and chocolate. I’ve named her Little Dragon because of the fire she evokes and she is going to be my priority going forward for this year. Her and getting the first book of three ready to submit to a publisher. That’s not expecting too much of myself, is it? {sigh}

Posted on by damynx

As Simple as a Cup of Tea

My monk, Titch Nhat Hanh, practiced something called a tea meditation. It’s said he would spend an hour drinking a cup of tea with his fellow monks. It sounds glorious. Honestly, I’m saying that without rancor or sarcasm. In his book Anger: Wisdom for cooling the flames, he talks about how a cup of tea, when drunk with mindfulness, will bring us back to ourselves. The whole world melts away when you spend the time thinking about nothing else but drinking the warm infusion of leaves, smelling the botanical aromas and feeling the concoction infuse your soul with each sip.

I have started my own tea ritual at night before bed. I’m not able to completely concentrate on the tea, I don’t quite have the discipline yet. I also have a bird who demands my complete attention after being left alone all day. I have a small one-ounce cup I try to put out for her when I drink but she doesn’t seem as interested in the tea as she is in pushing the small cup off the desk. She makes me smile. The tea does make me pause, to inhale the floral bouquet (tonight is lemon balm) and try to exhale the feelings of being overwhelmed, overworked and inactive in the direction I want to go. The herbals I drink at night are designed to promote calm and restfulness of mind after the long days I’ve been having, and the spice teas I drink during the day are to get more liquid and less chemicals into my body for better health.

I didn’t practice last night. I was too tired to do anything, including sleep. I was irritated because work was long, lunch was gastro-intestinally distressing and the work environment dredged up some old forgotten feelings from long, long ago of people long since passed. I watched TV eating salted caramels from Costco and stayed up well past my bedtime (8:30pm!) and still couldn’t sleep. I eventually got up around 10pm took some Tylenol then rubbed a melatonin infused lotion on my legs and feet and eventually fell into a quasi-restful slumber. I blamed my restlessness on the family interaction from the night before, I blamed it on working too much, I blamed it on being too tired to sleep. In reality, I didn’t bring myself back to center with a cup of tea after being scattered mentally, physically and emotionally from the day. Rituals are powerful tools, even when they are as simple as a cup of tea.

Posted on by damynx

Sharpening The Tools

Therapy to me has been about gaining the tools most lucky people honed at the knee of their loving and sympathetic parents. It’s hard to till emotional barren terrain with a sarcasm and empty promises. I like to believe I am well on my way to the fully stocked and functioning emotional tool shed I should have graduated college with. If I had graduated college.

The blow to my emotional foundation from last week in Mixed Messages put me in an easily angered and dark state making it hard to be around my family. Then my sister fell and broke her ankle. It brought up a lot of unresolved anger from when I broke my foot. I know, the two aren’t the same but they aren’t mutually exclusive either. I learned there is still a lot of anger in me at the living family. Sure, I forgave mom but it’s easy when you know you’re never going to have to deal with them, or care about them, or be measured and judged by them ever again. The anger I’m still dealing with in regards to my sisters and brother sometimes overtakes me and apparently I’m not as deft at hiding it from them. My humor turns scary dark. Who knew?

The anger was getting too comfortable so I took out my journal and I wrote for a few hours. When I was taking care of my mother I would open a vein and let the ichor run over the pages until the pain receded back to numbness. That was the purpose of the ‘vomitorium’ entries as I’ve come to label them. When I needed more than the temporary peace I limited myself to not just spewing but finding a solution to the bone stuck in my throat. I did a lot of spewing in this entry, about the abandonment, the narcissistic or neurotic tendencies which make me and my sisters who we are and how it affected me directly. It is all about me in my journal, that is the purpose of my journal. I calmed down the anger as well as talking myself through it and I’m turning to my tools to deal with it.

My most useful tool has always been my journal. I can remember writing a lot of posts about how I needed to be a better person, not for my mom, but for me because I wanted to achieve my goals. In some way I laid the foundation I’m building on today, in other ways I reinforced the illusions my mother conditioned me with. Focusing on my breath helps me work my way through acute and immediate stressors so I don’t get wound up in the anger and I remain functional. Forgiving the living is still a tool I’m trying to put to the whetstone but I can’t seem to make contact well enough to do anything but dull the blade. I don’t know why I can’t just wave my hand and say “All is forgiven”. No, I know why. It’s the memories and their words and the not being there when I needed them that present in my mind and refused to be mown down by the dull blade.

I love my sisters. I really, really do. Even when they don’t believe in me. They don’t have to believe in me as long as I believe in me. I don’t let the anger get between us, if I can help it. I need to sharpen my skills at hiding my moods better though. I don’t have to be the happy little clown all the time to humor them but I don’t need them worrying about me and trying to get to the festering angry core of my issues either. Thich Nhat Hanh taught anger has to do with the angry person not the one causing the anger. I can’t control why people do what they do, the only thing I can do is control what I do. Anger isn’t in harmony with Christ’s teachings, it isn’t in harmony with Zen teachings and it isn’t in harmony with a happy and healthy emotional wellbeing. Maybe it’s time to stop spewing in my journal and going to back stating a problem and finding a solution. So, I guess a blank journal is going to be the whetstone for the forgiveness scythe to put in my tool shed. Time to order more ink.

uPDATE

I started reading ‘Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames’ by Thich Nhat Hanh I realized I wasn’t trying to help myself or anyone else with the comments about my sisters. The ultimate goal was for them to read my words and be hurt by them. I don’t think they really know how deep this goes, I honestly didn’t know how deep this anger went until after therapy on Tuesday. I don’t want to hurt them (yes, I do) but the purpose of reading and journaling is to work through it until it’s resolved. into forgiveness. I had hoped this process would be a wellspring of posts for the blog but in light of my Monk, wanting to hurt the person who hurt me is natural but it is not freedom from the flames of anger, it only fans conflagration.

“To be happy, to me, is to suffer less. If we were not capable of transforming the pain within ourselves, happiness would not be possible.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames

Therapy was also enlightening in as much as I learned to get to forgiveness you have to go through (not skip over) the anger. I have to deal with anger as it comes up, like my Monk says, but I am allowed to be angry. There has always been a real fear of anger taking me back deep into the void. Ellen pointed out in the Void there was hopelessness and depression. I’m not hopeless any more, and though I am still medicated for depression I am not suffering with it any longer. I can get angry, I can feel it and learn from it and work to transform it into forgiveness and freedom. This, however, is going to have to be dealt with in my journal and therapy. I will try to express my progress as long as it isn’t a subversive attempt to hurt my sisters.