I put together a notebook of good things people have said about me, or times when I’m feeling good. I started it in 2010, culling entries from past journals as well as current ones. I called it my “resource notebook” because a “resource” in Somatic Experiencing is anything that makes you feel more calm, more comfortable, more centered. It doesn’t have to be a real experience, the body responds to an image the same way it does to a reality. It’s also true of things that scare you. You can be re-traumatized by telling your trauma story.
I put together the notebook, hoping that as I read it over and over I’d begin to change my habitual self-rejection. Reading through it recently, I noticed posts from the end of 2008, when I had a breakdown in the fall. I was really struggling and even the “positive” journal entries are full of pain. So I’m doing another series from that time period.
One of the things I did was go to a retreat at Kripalu with Jack Kornfield. I respect Jack Kornfield highly, Kripalu is a place where I feel safe, and I’d been to one retreat with him there and it had been very helpful. It was disappointing when I had a very hard time at this retreat. See “Too Much Pain”