The Down Side of “Pushing” Myself

This morning I just didn’t want to go on.  I felt bad about dumping my negativity on my good friend Elizabeth — we always talk on Tuesday morning, and she has been a tremendous support for me — in spite of that, I still felt bad but didn’t know what else to do other than tell her the truth.  I started crying as soon as I heard her voice.  I read her yesterday’s post, and while I was reading I realized that I had pushed myself to do things on Saturday, and again yesterday.  In the morning I had pushed myself to complete numerous small errands — cash check, get stamps, etc.  In the afternoon I pushed myself to walk alone, going up to the Rte 3 hiking trail which didn’t have a lot of memories of Bella.  I started out walking fast, determined to get to the halfway mark — after all, I had done it last week with a friend.  Turns out it was a bad idea.  I couldn’t keep it up, I turned back at Skogumchuk Brook, and I started feeling nauseous.

While telling Elizabeth about all this, I cried a lot.  Elizabeth said there was a storm passing through and I should just let myself precipitate, which made me laugh, and was also permission to cry as much as I needed to.  When I finally stopped, she said that I didn’t sound like a person who didn’t want to live, I sounded like a person who was tired and alone.  She validated that the experiences I had the last few days were difficult.  She spoke very eloquently about what it is that I do when I’m teaching circle dance, which made me accept the possibility that I might be doing something valuable.  She said I have the skills to create and give birth to an experience for the circle of dancers.  As my therapists have often pointed out, if I can do it easily, I don’t value it.

I reminded her of her wonderful letter when she told me I was “generous, committed, and visionary.”  She sent it to me in 2005, and forced me to start revising my image of myself.  Later I started creating a document that contained all my good experiences, and all the good things people had said to me about myself.  I called it “Resource” because a “resource” in Somatic Experiencing is something that makes you feel more calm and steady and centered.  So I told Elizabeth that it was probably time for me to go back and read my “Resource Notebook,” and she said “You are so persevering.”  I started to cry because that was just what I’d been judging myself as not being.

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