(Written in January 2006)
Woke scared this morning. Called Karen who called back pretty quickly. She asked about yoga, art, writing for guidance. I told her I’d done all those and gone out on snowshoes too. She said then I had done everything I could do. That my fear was causing me to check everything minutely to see if it’s working and then panic if it’s no better. [I see now what I didn’t see then, this is hypervigilance.] She said I need to just keep going. She talked about acceptance and surrender, but I don’t know how to do them. I see that I can at least do my practices with the idea that they are helping me get through the day, and not ask that they make me better.
My heart is burning and squeezed. I feel torn by fear and grief together. A while back I had the thought that I could validate my feelings if I were dealing with major loss — but I am dealing with major loss, loss of a stable platform for my life.
It’s painfully discouraging to be so vulnerable, so easily triggered by a casual thought or an unconscious belief. I don’t know what triggered the fear this morning, it woke me up. I’m so tired of this. I’ve lost my hope that I will ever arrive at a long enough period of stable brain chemistry to be able to just sink into my life and enjoy it. I fear that the times that have felt good: when I was so pleased with how the house turned out and my creative process was flowing, when I felt so good last fall — undistorted and confident, that these good times are just rare peaks in a journey that mostly travels in dark valleys. Maybe even feeling good about myself and my life triggers depression because of the old, old belief that it’s not OK to feel good about myself. “Don’t think you’re so great.” And if that’s true, what’s the point in going on living? Wounded so badly that it can’t live, why not kill it, put it out of its pain.
Well. Analysis doesn’t help. I was OK yesterday and I will be OK again.
Affirmation: Spirit is in charge and Spirit has a plan in which there’s a place and a use for a creature as wounded as I am. Just as I am, I am part of the plan. Just as I am, I am doing the work of Spirit.