Went to Karen for help. I’ve been really struggling with depression since I got so sick. I had no energy for anything right after the training which was April 10. It was good to see her. I told her about being sick, and then getting depressed, about the energy medicine workshop, about the weekend, and new friends. I told Karen about accepting myself just as I am and accepting my life just as it is, and how that helped me feel better. Karen said when I’m badly depleted, there’s not enough of my Self there and I’m very vulnerable. Finally I lay down on the couch, and she put a blanket over me and stroked my hair. I just cried and cried. Karen said “That poor little girl” and I saw the image of Little Jenny, and how I’d come to love her. I realize that when I see her face, I don’t see the image mother reflected back to me, of a selfish and unloving child. I see a little girl with a lot of love, and creativity and generosity, who just wants to give what she has to the world. I also see the person that other people see and love. That’s a surprise. I have trouble believing it, trouble taking it in, but when I see that it’s Little Jenny who they love, and I love her too, then perhaps there’s a way to be able to take in the love people have for me.
I think there’s a way I have given up: given up trying to heal, given up trying to get better. If I can work so hard, and still collapse into depression, then I can’t say “I’ve healed.” Although I’ve healed a lot, am much more resilient, and can manage myself a lot better, but at the same time I can see how fragile I am. In some ways I think I’m more vulnerable than I was because I’ve dismantled so many defenses. I can see that it’s delusion to imagine that someday I’ll heal, and I won’t get depressed again. How I am now is the best I can hope for, and my task is just to take care of myself as best I can.
I started reading Pema Chodron “When Things Fall Apart,” but it’s not really speaking to me. I don’t have a carefully constructed self that “looks good.” I’m not sure why — possibly since nothing I did was acceptable to my mother, I didn’t have the raw material — parts of me that are “acceptable” — from which to construct such a self. It’s possible that my “false self” is the one Mother projected on to me, who “thinks she’s great,” who’s selfish and never thinks of others, who doesn’t have any talents or gifts worth developing. I certainly haven’t spent a lot of time trying to hold that one together. Instead, I’ve worked very hard at disproving that image, and haven’t been able to see how successful I’ve been, that most people don’t see her at all. I think of that letter from Lynn Thorp, and how surprised I was by the positive things she said about me. The other paradox is that my shadow self is creative, exuberant, generous — I try to keep it hidden, or pretend I don’t have it — and yet everybody around me sees it easily.