Today I'm focusing on another Sark quote:
(page 19) “Choosing Succulence is a deliberate act of personal revolution. It means waking up! Embracing your true self, studying your patterns, and letting out your most alive self. We all have one!”
I've been struggling greatly lately, as depression has a hold over me. I think part of my struggle with depression at this point is realizing and recognizing that there are pieces of me that I don't particularly like.
I've recognized that I make excuses for the thoughtlessness of those I care about while condemning people I don't care about for the same mistakes. And when I recognize this trait in other people, it irritates the hell out of me.
I'm not even sure how to awaken and display my most alive self. Right now I have to remember daily that this too shall pass, that I will not be depressed forever, and that I will learn to be happy again.
I was on an anti-depressant, but I had to go off of it because it made the depression worse. It also caused my body to break out in acne, which seems like an insult to me. Now my skin has betrayed me? My skin is something I usually take pride in, but the acne itches and I don't like it. It seems to be going away now, but it's not very quick to leave.
I want my near-flawless skin back. I want to be content with all my pieces, even the ones that aren't very nice. I don't want to have to remind myself daily that things will get better, because I want things to be better now.
Guess I need to learn patience or else make my own miracle.
Showing posts with label Succulent Wild Woman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Succulent Wild Woman. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Puzzled
Today a Sark quote:
(page 17) “I am not always a positive person….Being ‘positive’ is a choice. I am flooded with the same doubts, terrors, insecurities, rages, incessant worries, and critical inner voices as everyone else—maybe more!”
I choose to be positive today, but first I have to figure out how to get out of my way. Hopefully it won't take long. Realistically, it'll probably take all day.
I'm struggling.
I thought I'd start the day building a puzzle, but making sense of the pieces spread out on my dining room table is too overwhelming right now.
So I answered email, and found myself overwhelmed at the task I gave myself, of revealing that a friend's actions (more accurately, lack thereof) were rather hurtful. It took me over half an hour to write approximately 6 sentences.
Maybe now that confronting unpleasantness has been taken care of, I'll be able to face the challenge of a jigsaw puzzle.
For now, I'm listening to music and doing my best to put my emotions into words.
I have decided to open an account on one of the web pages I visit and invite strangers to read my words. The thought is nearly overwhelming, as I worry that I'll be dismissed as self-indulgent. And then I realize, I have often not shared for similar reasons. I talk myself out of sharing all the time.
Last night at work, I dealt with a racist prank caller. The manager was ineffective in dealing with the jerk, and wanted to have a Black person answer the phone and deal with the bigot who claimed to be allergic to African Americans. So I took charge.
I answered the second phone call. I told the person that they were not to call again or that I would call the police, then politely but firmly got off the phone. That wasn't enough. They called back, so I told the person that they were incredibly offensive, to dunk their head in a toilet, and that I was going to call the police as soon as I got off the phone. I hung up as they scrambled, demanding that I not hang up.
I didn't call the police. We don't have caller ID, so it would have been pointless, but the bigot stopped calling after that.
I have trouble reconciling the thought that the target of someone's racist drivel should take care of the problem. I was plenty effective enough at getting the phone calls to stop, white girl that I am. Why add to my Black coworker's experience with racism, if I can step in and say enough is enough myself?
There is plenty of misery to go around, and I don't need to add to anyone else's misery by not taking care of a problem myself.
Now I'm going to work on a giant jigsaw puzzle and hope I'm no longer overwhelmed.
(page 17) “I am not always a positive person….Being ‘positive’ is a choice. I am flooded with the same doubts, terrors, insecurities, rages, incessant worries, and critical inner voices as everyone else—maybe more!”
I choose to be positive today, but first I have to figure out how to get out of my way. Hopefully it won't take long. Realistically, it'll probably take all day.
I'm struggling.
I thought I'd start the day building a puzzle, but making sense of the pieces spread out on my dining room table is too overwhelming right now.
So I answered email, and found myself overwhelmed at the task I gave myself, of revealing that a friend's actions (more accurately, lack thereof) were rather hurtful. It took me over half an hour to write approximately 6 sentences.
Maybe now that confronting unpleasantness has been taken care of, I'll be able to face the challenge of a jigsaw puzzle.
For now, I'm listening to music and doing my best to put my emotions into words.
I have decided to open an account on one of the web pages I visit and invite strangers to read my words. The thought is nearly overwhelming, as I worry that I'll be dismissed as self-indulgent. And then I realize, I have often not shared for similar reasons. I talk myself out of sharing all the time.
Last night at work, I dealt with a racist prank caller. The manager was ineffective in dealing with the jerk, and wanted to have a Black person answer the phone and deal with the bigot who claimed to be allergic to African Americans. So I took charge.
I answered the second phone call. I told the person that they were not to call again or that I would call the police, then politely but firmly got off the phone. That wasn't enough. They called back, so I told the person that they were incredibly offensive, to dunk their head in a toilet, and that I was going to call the police as soon as I got off the phone. I hung up as they scrambled, demanding that I not hang up.
I didn't call the police. We don't have caller ID, so it would have been pointless, but the bigot stopped calling after that.
I have trouble reconciling the thought that the target of someone's racist drivel should take care of the problem. I was plenty effective enough at getting the phone calls to stop, white girl that I am. Why add to my Black coworker's experience with racism, if I can step in and say enough is enough myself?
There is plenty of misery to go around, and I don't need to add to anyone else's misery by not taking care of a problem myself.
Now I'm going to work on a giant jigsaw puzzle and hope I'm no longer overwhelmed.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Frustration
Today, I am sprinkling some of Sark's thoughts among mine.
Today, as I have been for some time now, I am frustrated. The men in my life are not getting along, and I have been doing what I can to hold things together. It's not in my power.
(page 53) “Explore healing options. If you feel unloved, look to yourself for love. Whatever the issues are, ultimately self-love and acceptance are the answers.
“We all have tiny, mis-shapen parts of ourselves that we hide away and don’t love. Turn towards those parts and cradle them.”
Perhaps it is passive-aggressive that I write this. Perhaps it is cruel. Perhaps the fallout will be harsh.
(page 90) “Nobody tells us as little girls that we may fall in love and have moments of hating our beloved, or have ridiculous arguments at 2 am over something neither person understands.
“My friend John calls it, ‘the nuance of annoyance.’ After you’ve been with someone for awhile, all the tiny and large things they do that annoy you, come forward.
“We are not taught something I call ‘intimate negotiations.’ It involves adjustment, compromise, integrity, truthtelling, options, willingness, and heart-full listening.”
But I am at the end of my rope, and my only option now is to let go. I can't keep holding on. It's not helping anyone that I am, least of all me.
What does letting go mean? Like most other meaningful questions of late: I don't know.
My counselor tells me that the only true thing we can control in this world, and even that only in degrees sometimes, is how we respond. The way we feel, to a degree, is a choice. My choice not to be numb, to seek help in navigating my memories and feelings, has led to depression. I have chosen to fight, and the fight is mostly in fancy.
This week I started out unable to visualize, to seeing that I was washed away at sea, to finding a boat, and then oars. And now I'm in the stuff of dreams: an emotional forest. I have seen both images of Shrek, where Fiona takes on bandits, and Snow White, where when she's calm, all the forest is her friend, but when she's scared, the forest is instead her enemy.
And I don't want the forest to be my enemy, so I'm watching closely.
(page 83) “Creative exploration will always result in mistakes, and if we fear those, we risk paralysis and a numb ‘good girl’ mentality.”
I let go of my rope, and I continue to explore. Where that will lead me, I don't know. I did realize that I wasn't dangling from the rope, poised to fall. Instead, I am deeper in my emotional landscape than the rope allowed.
I'll figure it out eventually.
Today, as I have been for some time now, I am frustrated. The men in my life are not getting along, and I have been doing what I can to hold things together. It's not in my power.
(page 53) “Explore healing options. If you feel unloved, look to yourself for love. Whatever the issues are, ultimately self-love and acceptance are the answers.
“We all have tiny, mis-shapen parts of ourselves that we hide away and don’t love. Turn towards those parts and cradle them.”
Perhaps it is passive-aggressive that I write this. Perhaps it is cruel. Perhaps the fallout will be harsh.
(page 90) “Nobody tells us as little girls that we may fall in love and have moments of hating our beloved, or have ridiculous arguments at 2 am over something neither person understands.
“My friend John calls it, ‘the nuance of annoyance.’ After you’ve been with someone for awhile, all the tiny and large things they do that annoy you, come forward.
“We are not taught something I call ‘intimate negotiations.’ It involves adjustment, compromise, integrity, truthtelling, options, willingness, and heart-full listening.”
But I am at the end of my rope, and my only option now is to let go. I can't keep holding on. It's not helping anyone that I am, least of all me.
What does letting go mean? Like most other meaningful questions of late: I don't know.
My counselor tells me that the only true thing we can control in this world, and even that only in degrees sometimes, is how we respond. The way we feel, to a degree, is a choice. My choice not to be numb, to seek help in navigating my memories and feelings, has led to depression. I have chosen to fight, and the fight is mostly in fancy.
This week I started out unable to visualize, to seeing that I was washed away at sea, to finding a boat, and then oars. And now I'm in the stuff of dreams: an emotional forest. I have seen both images of Shrek, where Fiona takes on bandits, and Snow White, where when she's calm, all the forest is her friend, but when she's scared, the forest is instead her enemy.
And I don't want the forest to be my enemy, so I'm watching closely.
(page 83) “Creative exploration will always result in mistakes, and if we fear those, we risk paralysis and a numb ‘good girl’ mentality.”
I let go of my rope, and I continue to explore. Where that will lead me, I don't know. I did realize that I wasn't dangling from the rope, poised to fall. Instead, I am deeper in my emotional landscape than the rope allowed.
I'll figure it out eventually.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Turning Rainbows Into Tie-Dye
Today I'm wandering my psyche and quoting Sark.
(page 54) “Sometimes we are stuck in a maze of our own making and could use a helping hand.”
Last night I was at work when depression caught up with me. Nothing and Everything flooded me in a deluge of emotion like bricks, and I was miserable. I haven't felt that down in over a decade, right before my last suicide attempt. It was awful.
I'm still not sure what exactly triggered it. I thought that when I went home I'd either wake up my husband and cry, or that I'd call a suicide hotline.
(page 36) “Women’s hearts are big enough to bear the pain, peer into the dark, and do the work.
“We are led into darkness anyway by events of life: death, loss, and pain. We cannot pretend that we don’t live with the darkness, or smile it away or think somehow we will escape.
“There is no need to escape!”
Somehow last night I was able to turn in all around all by myself. I grabbed back the reins of my mood, remembering my counselor responding to my description of my emotional landscape, that I was able to save myself. So I did.
I started wondering what color my misery was. I wondered if it was blue. And I wondered what color my anger was, and I got angry. I dug myself out of the wet bricks with anger. And I let anger fuel me into purpose. I did my job with purpose, focusing on getting everything done that I needed done.
After a storm, there is often a rainbow, if you look away from the sun. I looked for the rainbow, and then I used that to make tie-dye banners to decorate the castle of my soul.
I also stayed up even later than I intended, talking about what happened with my husband, who loves me enough to talk about Everything and Nothing even though he had to get up in a couple of hours.
I am in a more peaceful place today, but very tired.
(page 54) “Sometimes we are stuck in a maze of our own making and could use a helping hand.”
Last night I was at work when depression caught up with me. Nothing and Everything flooded me in a deluge of emotion like bricks, and I was miserable. I haven't felt that down in over a decade, right before my last suicide attempt. It was awful.
I'm still not sure what exactly triggered it. I thought that when I went home I'd either wake up my husband and cry, or that I'd call a suicide hotline.
(page 36) “Women’s hearts are big enough to bear the pain, peer into the dark, and do the work.
“We are led into darkness anyway by events of life: death, loss, and pain. We cannot pretend that we don’t live with the darkness, or smile it away or think somehow we will escape.
“There is no need to escape!”
Somehow last night I was able to turn in all around all by myself. I grabbed back the reins of my mood, remembering my counselor responding to my description of my emotional landscape, that I was able to save myself. So I did.
I started wondering what color my misery was. I wondered if it was blue. And I wondered what color my anger was, and I got angry. I dug myself out of the wet bricks with anger. And I let anger fuel me into purpose. I did my job with purpose, focusing on getting everything done that I needed done.
After a storm, there is often a rainbow, if you look away from the sun. I looked for the rainbow, and then I used that to make tie-dye banners to decorate the castle of my soul.
I also stayed up even later than I intended, talking about what happened with my husband, who loves me enough to talk about Everything and Nothing even though he had to get up in a couple of hours.
I am in a more peaceful place today, but very tired.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Meditations Towards Happiness
I've begun to read Succulent Wild Woman: Dancing With Your Wonder-Full Self! by Sark. It's actually a bit fluffy for me, but I need a pick-me-up. I've been mired in depression for weeks, and I've lost my perkiness.
(page 14) "It isn't easy for any of us to transcend the past, or pain we might have suffered. Yet, there are gifts in those pains, and we can choose to let light into the dark places. We are not alone!"
The whole point of this blog and of seeking therapy was to shine light into the dark places of my memory, the dark unexposed parts of my soul. And it's harder than I thought it would be. The pains feel almost fresh, and some of them have been ripening for a long time.
(page 10) "My own journey is full of fear, pain, love, shame, wonder, ecstasy, luck, daring, and marvelous imperfections."
I took a journey through my psyche and found a series of me trapped in an MC Escher drawing, climbing a ring of stairs only to find myself once again on the bottom. How can I go up and up but never get anywhere? So I took drastic action in my mind, and bent and tore that picture open. At first there was only a void in the opening created by ripping the picture, but then it filled with a flight of butterflies. I don't know what the butterflies hide, but I'm not scared to find out anymore.
(page 11) "I invite you to travel along with me as I share my stumblings, astonishments, and discoveries as a woman."
I invited a handful of friends to travel with me through this. I hope we all survive the journey, because it's already proven to be a painful one for me. While I try to spare everyone the full force of my anger, the rage that this journey has revealed in me, I have been unable to fully shield everyone. I have already hurt feelings while trying to just keep myself together. I'm sure I'll hurt more. The journey isn't going to be comfortable all of the time, that's just the way healing is. Sometimes the wounds have to be reopened, cleaned, and then scored so that the edges can bleed together and reknit. And that means pain.
(page 13) "I guess I look bright and untroubled, and I smile a lot, which is sometimes a mask to hide shyness, fear, or pain."
I learned to mask myself with a smile a long, long time ago. I was not allowed to show my pain as a child. After all, I was a white, middle-class girl from a respectable family, and dammit if I was unhappy then I should just count my blessings and stop feeling sorry for myself. After all, what would the neighbors think?
And the whole time I was living with the person who molested me, whom my parents refused to believe did so. I was forced to eat dinner sitting right next to him, which was actually probably better than across from him, having to look at him while I ate. I could instead imagine an invisible forcefield between us, so he couldn't pollute my space. I would push his chair as far away from mine as possible, and do my best never to have him in my field of vision, though I couldn't stop smelling him. Ick.
Even now I hide behind a smile most of the time, and it can be shocking for people when they realize that my smiles sometimes have tone, and not happy ones at that. I can be aggressively perky when I'm annoyed or angry, my smile more a baring of teeth and my enthusiasm little more than a snarl. My smiles can be anxious or scared or panicked while I do my best to keep myself calm and in control.
(page 13) "I do not know more than you do. My investigations have shown that we frequently think others know IT but we don't know IT.
"What is IT?"
I don't know what IT is, but I'm looking to be a more content, more calm, more connected person. In some ways, I'm looking to be more Zen about things. I'm looking to be a healed, healthy, whole person whose mind doesn't have chasms. I'm looking to stop being numb all the time. I want love, peace, and happiness. I don't know how to be happy on a regular basis.
According to Sark, I'm looking to be a more succulent woman.
(page 5) "Succulent: Ripe. Juicy. Whole. Round. Exuberant. Wild. Rich. Wide. Deep. Firm. Rare. Female."
I'm not sure what it all means yet.
(page 14) "It isn't easy for any of us to transcend the past, or pain we might have suffered. Yet, there are gifts in those pains, and we can choose to let light into the dark places. We are not alone!"
The whole point of this blog and of seeking therapy was to shine light into the dark places of my memory, the dark unexposed parts of my soul. And it's harder than I thought it would be. The pains feel almost fresh, and some of them have been ripening for a long time.
(page 10) "My own journey is full of fear, pain, love, shame, wonder, ecstasy, luck, daring, and marvelous imperfections."
I took a journey through my psyche and found a series of me trapped in an MC Escher drawing, climbing a ring of stairs only to find myself once again on the bottom. How can I go up and up but never get anywhere? So I took drastic action in my mind, and bent and tore that picture open. At first there was only a void in the opening created by ripping the picture, but then it filled with a flight of butterflies. I don't know what the butterflies hide, but I'm not scared to find out anymore.
(page 11) "I invite you to travel along with me as I share my stumblings, astonishments, and discoveries as a woman."
I invited a handful of friends to travel with me through this. I hope we all survive the journey, because it's already proven to be a painful one for me. While I try to spare everyone the full force of my anger, the rage that this journey has revealed in me, I have been unable to fully shield everyone. I have already hurt feelings while trying to just keep myself together. I'm sure I'll hurt more. The journey isn't going to be comfortable all of the time, that's just the way healing is. Sometimes the wounds have to be reopened, cleaned, and then scored so that the edges can bleed together and reknit. And that means pain.
(page 13) "I guess I look bright and untroubled, and I smile a lot, which is sometimes a mask to hide shyness, fear, or pain."
I learned to mask myself with a smile a long, long time ago. I was not allowed to show my pain as a child. After all, I was a white, middle-class girl from a respectable family, and dammit if I was unhappy then I should just count my blessings and stop feeling sorry for myself. After all, what would the neighbors think?
And the whole time I was living with the person who molested me, whom my parents refused to believe did so. I was forced to eat dinner sitting right next to him, which was actually probably better than across from him, having to look at him while I ate. I could instead imagine an invisible forcefield between us, so he couldn't pollute my space. I would push his chair as far away from mine as possible, and do my best never to have him in my field of vision, though I couldn't stop smelling him. Ick.
Even now I hide behind a smile most of the time, and it can be shocking for people when they realize that my smiles sometimes have tone, and not happy ones at that. I can be aggressively perky when I'm annoyed or angry, my smile more a baring of teeth and my enthusiasm little more than a snarl. My smiles can be anxious or scared or panicked while I do my best to keep myself calm and in control.
(page 13) "I do not know more than you do. My investigations have shown that we frequently think others know IT but we don't know IT.
"What is IT?"
I don't know what IT is, but I'm looking to be a more content, more calm, more connected person. In some ways, I'm looking to be more Zen about things. I'm looking to be a healed, healthy, whole person whose mind doesn't have chasms. I'm looking to stop being numb all the time. I want love, peace, and happiness. I don't know how to be happy on a regular basis.
According to Sark, I'm looking to be a more succulent woman.
(page 5) "Succulent: Ripe. Juicy. Whole. Round. Exuberant. Wild. Rich. Wide. Deep. Firm. Rare. Female."
I'm not sure what it all means yet.
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