Category: Books

The Work Ahead

Okay, I’m reading Bradshaw and I’m getting into it and he starts talking about having to *have* to do the work in order to make it work.  I’m scared.  Not because I’m innately lazy, but because I’m afraid of what the work might dig up.  On paper, yea, I’m all for doing the work, making myself better, but on paper means I don’t have any real skin in the game.  On paper I’m an author, but in reality, I’m just a writer.  The reading of just the work to come makes me want to crawl into bed and hide from it all, but I don’t want to, I want to make my life better.

I’m going to talk to Connie about it tomorrow, to assure myself that the work ahead of me isn’t going to be as time-consuming, arduous and painful as I’m fearing it will be.  It probably will be, but I think I just need someone to lie to me so I can get started.

What I guess I’m really afraid of is crying.  I joke and say that crying is for sissies, but the ruth of the matter is I’m afraid if I start crying I won’t be able to stop.  Or I’ll have to explain to my mother why I’m not ‘happy’.  It advocates I shouldn’t be on medication so I’m not numb, but at the same time, I’m afraid of the anger, rage coming back before I get my grief work done.  Or worse, I do something to me before I get the work done.

I’ve come to realize, though I’ve fought it for so long, that I was  sexually molest as a child.  Not physically but emotionally, which, according to Bradshaw, is just as bad if not worse.  It explains the shame, it explains the fear of intamacy….and so on.  I think this is going to have to be a journal entry, I don’t necessarily trust this avenue.  Again, trust issues are a sign as well.  If I feel it’s safe to reveal the journal entry I’ll upload it…okay, type it up.

Just putting this down, expelling it from circling the drain in my brain has relaxed me and I’ve jettison the stress, and now I’m just a bit neurotic.

Off the Map

I’m still trying to bulldoze my way through the prologue of Homecoming by Bradshaw and it said something that pulled an interesting image up in my mind.

Erickson believed that every person has his own unique map of the world.

When I worked at the now defunct Sun Microsystems we had a trick-or-treat Halloween thing that was mandatory and my room were pirates.  I made a treasure map and put it on my cube wall.  I drew a free-form island and put in trees, huts, a volcano and so on and then a big X marking the spot.  I drew a compass in the middle of the ocean and off into the edge I drew dragons with the warning “Yonder there be dragons,”  I have a feeling that reclaiming and championing my inner child is going to be more like fighting dragons than I would like, but if fighting dragons means broadening my unique map of the world I think pushing my boundaries will be a good thing.  As long as it’s not the Norwegian horn tail.

A Palpable Silence

I’ve been in such a funk these past few days.  I started reading The Homecoming by Bradshaw, I had some spare time in the early afternoon because I was between doctors appointments so I thought I would crack the book and see what is in store for me.  I got a few pages into the introduction and I had to stop.  Not just because they called my name but because I don’t think I could handle any more of hearing the letters these people were writing to their parents without pulling up the dregs of my own wounded child.  In some regards I wasn’t as horribly treated as some, but some hit so close to home and stirred up other emotions and memories that I keep forgetting I’ve buried.

I’ve gone silent.  Which in a way is good, I got some wholesale editing done today on my pinks but I’m not very talkative to Mom and she’s irritating me.  She won’t shut up and let me just have the silence.  She actually realized that I was trying to pseudo-nap today, what I call floating, that she needed to stop talking and trying to engage me into some form of conversation.  I need to get back to the basics with my anger management and I think I’m going to put Bradshaw on a shelf and re-read When Anger Hurts and actually do the journal this time.  I think I can handle adding the extra work onto my list of things to do.

What is annoying me is that this has been hanging on for two days now.  Normally I shake it off and go on like nothing happened.  I’m worried that I’m pushing back reading the book because I don’t want to dredge up the skeletons in my past and see them again, rotted flesh and vacant eyes, staring at me, accusing me for not protecting them when I was a child.  I couldn’t, I was a child, but tell that to them.

My mind has been focusing on scenarios that are never going to happen again, and I can’t seem to derail them.  It’s just the spinning and spinning and the whole “What would you do if-” BS that I don’t even need to waste my time on.  It’s family stuff, it’s annoying and it’s really never going to happen….at least not to me.

In the mean time, Mom keeps asking me why I’m so quiet and I have nothing to tell her.  She hasn’t done anything lately, all she did was leave a trail of dead bodies behind in my psyche that I need to give a proper burial to.  I don’t think there is going to be an easy route through this part of my education….Damnit!

Step By Step, Inch By Inch

I’m putting my goals up for this week so I will be accountable.  They might seem like small steps to the rest of the world, but I need the baby steps for now.

Intellectual – Reading Homecoming by Bradshaw

Work – Edit 300 lines a day and print up pink copies as I complete a chapter

Social – Do my visiting teaching

Physical – Work out on treadmills and elliptical 4x this week

Emotional – Write 3x in BFTV and 1 in PS, 1-2 journal entries

Diet – Eat more fruit

I’ll check in from time to time to update how this is going.  Wish me success.

The Seed Of Anger

I finished reading Anger by my Monk.  He said something that was a bit disheartening.  He said Anger never goes away, its always with you.  He used the image of a house having a livingroom and a basement.  When one is confronted with something that pisses us off it’s the same as watering the seed of anger in the basement and it grows into the livingroom.  When you allow someone to water your seed it just gets bigger, and bigger until your howl livingroom is consumed with the soul eating plant.  (The flower from Little Shop of Horrors comes to mind).  He instructs that we smile at it, breathe deeply in and then again out until you feel the anger return to a seed.  Through practice, meaning mindful walking and mindful breathing so the time spent with the anger in the livingroom is as short as possible.

The thing that gets me is the whole smiling at it.  What if I do that during the irksome têt et têt and I give my anger a smile, it would serve to piss off some people more.  I’m sort of looking forward to the opportunity to try it out though.

I realize I have a lot of work to do in regards to my Wounded Child.  I’ve purchased Homecoming by Bradshaw which is what Connie said I should read to work with my wounded child and then I got a new book from my Monk about how to be mindful in everyday life.  Kind of like the book I read about Holiness in Every Day Life.  Between those two I should be on my way to heal the wounded child and to practice Mindfulness in everyday life so the seeds of anger will never get past the stairs from the basement to the livingroom.  My livingroom is crowded enough with my characters and plots, I don’t need the anger to crowd them out again.

Comforting The Wounded Child

Thich Nhat Hanh says there is a wounded child in all of us in need of comfort and needs to be brought into our mindfulness practices in order to facilitate healing.  He talks about bringing her along on meditative walks, maybe even spending a whole week with her, etc.  As flippant as I’d like to be at this concept I can’t find it in me.  He’s right.  The wounded little girl in me has been sending up flares for me to pay attention to her for a long time now. I’ve just thought it was a way for my anger to flare at my Mom in retaliation to all of her self-centered demands for things like they never were when I was growing up.

Memories of being hit, of going hungry, of being isolated in corners while my mother slept have been coming up in my mind.  Of remembering, or rather not remembering, my mother ever showing me how to clean house, just demanding that it be done, and yelling or spanking me when it wasn’t done right.  Of being called stupid, weird, strange, fat, pig, etc.  I won’t allow myself to believe these taunts, beatings and shunning were malicious, intentional attacks on my as a child, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

I guess this harkens back to the whole “getting in touch with your inner child” psycho-babble of the 70’s and 80’s, but as I recall, that just encouraged the rich and self-indulgent to be childish.  This isn’t about getting in touch with your “child” but the “wounded” child.  Two completely different entities.  Christ talks about how we need to become as children, but He was talking in faith, in wonder, in guile.  The wounded child had her wonder and guile taken from her.  Luckily I still have my faith.  I need to work at bringing her back to that child-like state and get away from the angry, child-ish frame of mind.

It seems appropriate for me to comfort her and pay attention to her because I’m trying to re-raise me as well as my mom.  To not only be the mother to her she always wanted and for me to be the mother to me I never had.  An integral  part of that is going to be spending time with my wounded poppet and comfort her, tell her she is loved and wanted and that I am grateful she was born and is a treasure if to no one else but me, and I value that treasure beyond all worth on earth.

I’m not sure how to apply this concept though.  Do I schedule something on the calendar or do I try to remember it in my daily practice and life?  I hope she tells me what she needs because I don’t want to mess myself up more than I already am.

The Anger Wins Again

The anger from the last few days has exhausted me, emotionally and mentally.  I’m sleeping, but not as much as I would like (like 15+ hrs).  The house is still a mess and I’m feeling like a slag for not getting it done.  Not to prove to my mom that I can but to prove to myself that I can.  I just want to curl up in a ball and hide from the world again.  I see nothing but manipulation spewing from my mother’s mouth.  I hate the anger and yet at the same time it’s safe, I’m safe when I have those barbed walls around me.  I wish I could just cuddle Sammy close to me and wait for the end of days, but parrots aren’t exactly the cuddling type, come to think of it, neither is anger.

Party Like A Rock Star

I’ve just finished a fun read called “The Oracle Glass” by Judith Merkel Riley.  If you need a vacation this book transports you to the court of Louis XIV, the Sun King.  You will be twirled around the court and the intrigue becomes your obsession as a small, twisted girl becomes the talk of the town for her ability to see futures in water.  The most delightful aspect of this book is the humor involved.  It’s a good read, a good laugh and a walk through history.  (I’ve read it twice this year alone).  But that’s not why I’m writing.  One of the characters was known for throwing lavish parties for the beginning and the ending of court, or witches feasts and so on.  It got me thinking.  If the Shadow Queen can throw a grand party for all things dark and sinister why can’t I throw a party when (Notice I’m not saying if here) I’m out of the void?  Would it be to de classe as the French would say?  I’m talking about haiving little nibblies and gifts for all the people who helped me through this?  Sort of a thank you to y’all and a yee haa for me.

P.S. Check out the book, I swear you’ll love it.  Riley knows her history and has mad skills with the pen.

A Peaceful Heart

A quote in Living Buddah, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh sums up exactly what it is like for me when I am consumed by fire:

Anger is Hell

Don’t I know it!

Putting the Grrrr in Angggerrr

Okay, I finished When Anger Hurts, well what applied to me.  I don’t have kids to take it out on, and I’m not in an abusive spouse, I didn’t think I need to read it.  Not unless you consider caging Sammy at 7:00pm every night or calling Mom a big whiney baby when she talks about her pain.  I don’t really mean it, but according to the book I sorta do.  I’m trying to stop it, but it’s just so cute and funny, and yea, it releases some of the anger and tension.

I dropped a note to Dr. McKay about making an app for the book.  I haven’t heard back, haven’t really expected to.  He is busy releasing the rage in the rest of the world.

It is a good book, it has a lot of good advice as to how to wrangle the rage and re-align the anger into correcting the behavior to unseat the thorn that the rage is festering over.  I didn’t do the diary thing, I wanted to read through it to see how it ended first.  And now that I know what’s going to be required of me in the writing I can set me up the journal to be able to accommodate the different steps.  So, though I’ve finished reading it and tweezing out different gems for my journal discussions I will be doing,    Plus it’s kind of impossible for me to not get through the middle of a and then go to the back to make sure that everyone lives.

I’m in the middle of Living Buddha Living Christ and the Monk that wrote it is also speaking to me, calming the angry ripples in my soul and explaining more about medication, about mindfulness.  How being aware of what you eat, what you drink, the clothes you wear and the things you say, they all return back to peace and mindfulness.  I plan on making his book on Anger my next read with the WAH book again with journaling.

The bottom line is I can feel myself when I start getting out of hand, I back up, take a deep breath and the pull the puppy by its tail and let it cool down before I jump into the fray.  When I feel like I’m being judged, mostly from my mom and sister, tend to hurt the most.  I have to realize they aren’t going to change, it’s not fair of me to ask them to change. I can only change my reaction to the stimuli or back away from it and take a break until I can get to a calmer state so I can calmly negotiate things to where they need to.