All Parts of Me

Posted on December 10, 2010 by jenny

(Written in February 2010)
I’ve been having this odd thought — it comes from some of the passages I’ve written describing myself as a wonderful person: “lovely, loving, creative, generous…” I’d be ashamed to read those passages to someone — they seem like the most horrible form of “bragging”, of “thinking I’m so great.” But they were written out of an honest and compelling experience/realization. And intellectually I can see that from some perspective they are true. I hold that version of me next to how I’m feeling now: tired, depressed, struggling, and I can’t make them fit.
It was good to talk to Elizabeth. I read her quite a lot from Resource — she said she enjoyed it. I read her the piece describing me as “lovely, loving, creative, generous…” and asked if that sounded like me. She said “Yes… but it’s not all of you.” That really shifted something. Of course. I’m not just that, I’m all the others too: the Astronomy teacher, the tough little drip, the wounded ones. The “radiant one” is perhaps my soul, I serve her, and I sometimes get to embody her, but the wounded ones are also parts of me, parts that I serve by working on healing.

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Healing Work

Posted on December 9, 2010 by jenny

(Written in September 2009)
I wanted to think a little about what I’m doing with this piece of my life. I’m working at a very deep level to try to find or create a stable foundation for my life. This foundation has to do with weight: feeling my weight sink down, feeling gravity as a direction, feeling the earth supporting me. Learning to have my body and breath be a resource for me because they are always with me. I need to be with Caryn to actually do the work, but I can practice on my own. I have no idea how long it’s going to take, and that’s discouraging. And Caryn’s going to be away a lot this fall, so I have to find ways of supporting myself while she’s gone.

Dear Baby Jenny, my intent and my commitment is to stay here with you so you won’t be alone with your feelings of terror and despair. I want you to feel all your feelings, even the difficult and unpleasant ones. I find them difficult and unpleasant too, but I’m willing to feel them because I’m convinced that only by feeling them can I/we heal them. I love you very much, I’m glad I have you in my life, and you and your healing is my first priority.

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Healing

Posted on December 8, 2010 by jenny

(Written in August 2009)
Karen was helpful. I’m beginning to tease apart the triggered state and the reality of my life now. Driving over I had that sense of tunnel vision that I see as being a clue that I’m dissociated. Paying attention, I notice that it’s like my whole body is in a cylinder that’s restricting, that’s trying to make me be smaller. It reminds me of the way I walk that Caryn demonstrated. I’m beginning to see that the sense of urgency that I feel — got to DO something — belongs to the state itself and not to reality. So I’m more able to just be with the state itself — tho it’s uncomfortable and unpleasant — trusting that it will eventually end. Certainly this morning I’m much better, tho a little tired and sad.
Reading over 2007 to look for affirming passages, reminded me that I actually had a lot of time feeling good about myself and my life. What’s different now is that I’m including the traumatized baby as part of me, and part of my life. Then, I saw the “real me” as the radiant priestess, now I see the “real me” as including the traumatized baby, and the “tough little drip”, the whole committee, “this little group of jennys, bless them.”

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Struggle with Depression

Posted on December 6, 2010 by jenny

(Written in January 2009)
Driving over to Montpelier I had a wave of discouragement: “Why am I doing this? What’s the point?” and I started to brush it aside, and then I thought it was worth looking at seriously. I go on because I believe that my life has meaning, that there’s something I came here to do, and I want to be in touch with it. I want to live my life from that place, not from the depressed place. I don’t believe that what I feel right now about myself and my life is true, that my life is meaningless, that I am worthless.

I have a life that is true, meaningful and worthwhile
I am not in touch with that life right now
I don’t know what to do to get back in touch with it.
I am willing to let go of the things that aren’t working
I am open to trying new things
I ask for help from all the beings who are willing to help me.

I think I must be exhausted from a lot of bad nights and possibly struggling with the fear/nausea. Certainly yesterday was much easier – saw Karen, came back and did Nia at about 30% — it felt fine.
Karen talked about giving myself time & space to recover from what has been a very bad time. So instead of seeing my puzzle, solitaire, reading etc as a “useless” holding action, I can see it as a convalescence, allowing healing, renewing, recovering to happen on the deep invisible levels. Trying to move forward will have to wait until I’m feeling much more solid.

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Guidance for Feeling Bleak

Posted on December 5, 2010 by jenny

(Written in January 2009)
Feeling pretty bleak. I didn’t come out of it yesterday until women’s group. I felt like a child, thrust into an adult situation, and expected to act like an adult, and I haven’t a clue how to do it. After check-in Randi brought out a card game and we had fun and laughed a lot.
I see that I need more ordinary contact with people, I need to be doing things that a child might enjoy, ordinary things with ordinary people. Kayla said my presence helped her cook supper for both of us. I was able to work on the dance data base — that at least occupies my mind enough so I feel OK while doing it.
It’s taking everything I’ve got just to get through the day: to cook and eat meals, walk the dog, shop & deal with mail; anything more is beyond me. I’m just hanging on, I’m not getting better. At least I can see that I’m doing better than I was back in December. But I’ve lost the hope of getting better which is something that enabled me to keep going. I’m scared and discouraged at the prospect of a long slide downhill, of finding it harder and harder to take care of myself as my physical energy wanes. Well, at least I’m reaching out and I do have some friends to help me. And again, I’m projecting linearly from current reality — anything could happen: the stock market could recover, someone could appear who would be ideal for living with me and taking care of me, I could die quickly when the time comes.

Dear Guides & Guardian Spirits, I’m having a very hard time. I’m feeling a level of despair that’s a little scary, it feels like there’s no point in going on. Please help me.
Dear Jenny, your feeling that there’s no point is an old old feeling. It comes out of the reality of being left alone when you were unable to get your needs met. It is no longer true. Letting yourself feel it, being there for the traumatized baby, is how you heal it. And despite feeling so deeply discouraged and despairing, the truth is that you do go on. You have gone outside, cooked & eaten meals, washed dishes. You came out of it for a while yesterday, you were able to feel comfortable with your self. This is the reality of your life, of your life energy, of who you really are. The feelings of despair come from something that happened to you, they are not the reality. Let yourself see the terrified despairing baby that you were, and then scoop her up and hold her gently and firmly. There, there, little one. It was not OK what happened to you. You deserved to be held and comforted and guided, loved and supported, and you got too little of that positive nourishing. There, there, little one, you will come through this. You are engaged in a healing process, and you will heal.

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Somatic Experiencing

Posted on December 1, 2010 by jenny

(Written in May 2009)
The session with Caryn started with me feeling my butt as very solid and heavy. I need the safety of this corner and Caryn’s physical presence to feel it so deeply. As I stayed with it I could feel the heaviness climbing up into my thighs and lower torso and I had an image of heavy dark flakes settling down into the bottom of some container. Staying with the image, I could feel the heaviness begin in my hands & feet too (they were down & close together). There was lots of subtle discharge as I stayed with the dark heaviness in my butt. Sometimes a little voice would pop up & complain “This takes too long, I want to get through it fast.” I made a gesture with my arms. Caryn said “Is that what your body wants to do?” I checked, and that was my head. My body pushed back against the corner and straightened up a little. Then it became more comfortable to be with the discharge and with the resource. Caryn liked how I gave voice to those impulses. When I was really solidly with the heaviness in my butt, I began to feel like the top of a carrot, a big fat root that went deep into the earth.
Then I told her the story of losing it after the Maypole. She slowed me down — when did you first realize it wasn’t working for you? Well, not that morning (tho I was depressed) but I was wanting to celebrate this ancient festival. I think the first moment was when I was trying to help the little girls put on their flower wreaths. Last year there had been adults helping, this year I was alone. Caryn suggested I could have asked for help. So I asked for help — but from that frantic place — eyes wide open, hands splayed, back arched. She asked me to go back to the resource and then ask. Ah yes, much more grounded and solid, my voice sounding like I have the right to ask.
In the session before I had said “I want my life back.” Caryn asked if I really wanted it back the way it was. No, I would also want to have this more accurate perception of my limits, and the ability to ask for help. What I wanted back was the sense of confidence I had a year ago, the sense that life was meaningful and that I had something of value to offer.
I told her about my difficulty saying “No” to someone. Caryn stopped me & had me feel in my body what it’s like to be the one who feels she can’t renege on something she said she’d do. I nearly fell apart over that, that belief is so deep, part of my identity, my integrity.
I told her how I had stood up to another friend when she said “Maybe you should do it so you can see that you can do it…” and I said “I know I can do it, but right now I don’t have the energy. It takes everything I’ve got just to survive. I don’t have enough help.” So I had actually made a huge transition from failing to see my limits on Friday to standing up for them on Sunday.

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Transforming Grief

Posted on November 30, 2010 by jenny

(Written in April 2009)
Laura asked how we transform feelings by using the dance. It sounded like both Jan and Laura have a way of sending negative energy into the ground through their feet, Laura then invokes the energy of the earth. She says negative emotions can be turned into energy which is neutral & can be used for positive action. This all sounds unbelievably far beyond me at the moment.
I feel so inadequate to be participating in this training, and I feel like I’m not at all ready for any kind of initiation. What do I need? What do I want? I need to be healed from some very deep old wounds, and the only thing I know that works is Somatic Experiencing — although the grief work does seem to be making a difference as well.
I feel so much grief and anger that I haven’t been able to participate and enjoy these days with this group of women. I’m afraid the anger is directed at myself — for not being stronger, or more courageous, or something. Laura says we can make a choice — but I don’t see any choices, or only limited ones. I can, and do, choose to be present to my experience, I can and do choose to extend compassion to myself in my suffering. I don’t see how to turn depression and terror into positive energy for living.

This morning I was saying how bad I felt that I wasn’t able to participate more and Laura said “You are present with your vulnerable broken heart, and you are taking care of yourself, and you are a model for all of us.” Her support has helped a lot. This morning she suggested I do floor work while the rest did “Middle Eastern Garden.” I also tried to let my grief soak out of my heart into the earth. Feeling better this afternoon.

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Angry at Myself

Posted on November 29, 2010 by jenny

(Written in April 2009)
Woke scared & sad. I really fell apart inside yesterday. I’m sure it’s because everybody’s leaving. We just had a wonderful weekend of training in Women’s Ritual Dances with Laura Shannon. I’m also feeling a lot of grief that I wasn’t able to participate in all the richness that was there. I’m having trouble finding compassion for my wounded broken self.

I can tell that I’m really angry at myself for not doing better. I can feel it in my chest, a sort of cramping and constricting, and in my upper arms & shoulders, neck & jaw. I don’t know what to do with it. I can’t make it change by trying to, or willing it.

Take a big step back. Here’s this woman, who at great personal cost built and subsidizes a building that is a healing sanctuary where magical things can happen. We just completed a training for women in becoming in touch with their own power, in energizing themselves from the powers of nature, of the living earth, and using this power for good in the world. Not in her wildest dreams could the visionary who built the building have imagined such a fulfillment of her vision. It was the perfect embodiment of all she hoped for. But the woman herself, for mysterious reasons probably connected to childhood trauma, was unable to fully participate, appreciate, and enjoy the event she had made possible. Can I feel compassion for her? At least it seems to have dissolved the anger, all I feel now is sadness.

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Guidance

Posted on November 29, 2010 by jenny

(Written in February 2009)
Dear Guides and Guardian Spirits, I haven’t written for a long time because I’ve felt so cut off from Spirit. I don’t understand what’s happened to me, I don’t understand how life can be meaningful or good when there’s so much suffering in the world. The hardest thing is not being able to feel any love in my heart, even for Bella. Can you help me?
Dear Jenny, we love you very much. We are all around you loving you, even when you can’t feel our presence. Your job right now is to bring as much love, softness and tenderness to that frightened child inside you as you can. You are also struggling with adverse brain chemistry and you must just follow the program and hang on. Things will get better. As for the point of it all: the point is growth in consciousness and compassion. You are doing your best. Your greatest faults have been committed against yourself, and learning to love the one in you who “can’t do anything”, who is a “failure”, who can’t take care of herself and must ask for help — this is a big, deep piece of work and you are tackling it bravely and with integrity. Go on as you have begun. Ask for our help as often as you need to, and do not be surprised at the forms it takes. We love you! Let that sink in.

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Trying to Connect with God

Posted on November 28, 2010 by jenny

(Written in March 2009)
I’ve been reading God’s Joyful Surprise by Sue Monk Kidd, whose Secret Life of Bees I love. This one is a little difficult because her experience is so different from mine. She was clearly loved by her parents, but at the same time she internalized the competitive cultural spirit — possibly because they had given her the confidence to succeed? So she tried to do it all “Super Mom” etc. and nearly killed herself. Being forced to slow down made her question how she was going about being a Christian and what was her relationship to God. She had experiences of God loving her unconditionally that I really envy. The closest I ever got was the Red Woman’s approval as I worked on the painting, the couch that morphed into a goddess, and the welcoming God at the gate of heaven. Unfortunately none of those lasted — and also they came spontaneously, when I wasn’t trying. I think of all the work I’ve done, the years of Zen practice, the years of therapy, for so little result. Though I can see that trauma had a large part in it. How could I advance spiritually with such gaping unhealed wounds? And it was the pain of the wounds that drove me, not a sense of discontent with a life that at least outwardly looked like a success.

I have been trying to hand my life over to God. I don’t remember exactly when I started, but I was feeling so confused and hopeless and discouraged, and that my own efforts were unavailing, so I started praying something like “I can’t do this, god, so if you want me to continue, if my life has some meaning in your scheme of things, then You must help me. You must show me what to do and help me do it.” I keep letting go of the financial situation into God’s hands, and I’ve been letting go of Neskaya too, since it’s obvious that I can’t make much contribution there the way I am right now. Not that I am somehow expecting god to make everything all right. I have no idea what God’s plan is, or how Neskaya fits into it.

What I’m trying to do is stay in the present moment as much as possible, take care of myself and my dog, and keep asking for help.

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