“Let myself be myself”

Posted on April 14, 2023 by jenny

I’ve just been typing my journal from March 19 and came across this:

I’ve been reading Rohr’s book on the 12 steps.  I feel so odd.  It seems like I’m already doing it, but if I am I should be happy and I’m not so I must be doing it wrong and don’t understand at all.  Maybe I really am a very good person who does a lot of things right.  The reason I don’t get that is that’s not what I feel like.  So I keep trying to be what I already am.

So odd to read this and realize that “trying to be what I already am” does not work.  On April 11, the Daily Good was about a man named Nic Askew, who had developed a way to get people to talk about their real lives, be their real selves. This can’t be done by just saying “Be yourself.” The black and white films are quite extraordinary.

From my journal for April 12

Yesterday was the most amazing day.  It had a kind of flow to it, bits of understanding that made a pattern.  It started when I went to the Clinic to have blood drawn.  Alice Vining came, sat down next to me, and said she’d just read the description of myself I wrote for the biographies book.  She said it was well written and she was impressed with my honesty.

The “biographies book” contains the biographies of all the residents who wanted to write one.  It’s available only to residents.

Then there was a Daily Good about a man named Nic Askew who filmed people in such a way that their honest selves appeared.  His “technique” is very hard to put into words, but watching one was a revelation.  A woman talked about struggling with depression, then some sort of crisis, then she found herself in Fields of Kindness.  She felt completely loved.  She got teary with some lovely smiles.  She was just completely real.  He has a website called Soul Biographies, black and white film that he’s taken of people.  I felt both inspired and validated.

So I just relaxed in some way, let myself be myself.  Something else that happened to me on March 19 was that the song in my head was St. Francis’ song for the “creatures” meaning created things from Brother Sun and Sister Moon to the tiniest animals. The music is quite joyful, and we also have a circle dance that goes with it. So I started doing the dance, and felt wonderfully happy as a result.

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From 1994: “Choose to be Happy”

Posted on April 11, 2023 by jenny

From my journal for October 30, 1994

Woke feeling very depressed.  Hard to get out of bed.  Told myself it was just chemicals in my body and I had to go on with my life.  Held it up “as prayer.”  Both activities helped lighten it a little but didn’t make it go away.

Holding up your pain as prayer is described as a thing you can do in Elizabeth Goudge.  I tried it, but it never works for me in the way she describes.

Reading yesterday an article by one of those people who says you can choose to be happy.  I don’t think that’s the choice, I think the choice is between truth and denial.  If people manufacture unhappiness for the purpose of manipulation, if they scare themselves with stories of the misery of the world (the author recommends avoiding news media because “only the bad stuff is news”) then perhaps they can choose to focus on something different.  But if your pain is because somebody dear to you has died, “choosing to be happy” seems inappropriate to say the least.  And if your pain is because some part of you has been foully murdered, and you’ve been told it didn’t happen, then you become stuck in the twin pains of grief and invalidation, and “choosing to be happy” is just a further invalidation.  What’s needed here is first the truth: yes, something was damaged here, and then space so that the process of mourning can happen.

I was thinking of how my father told me “You’re miserable because you want to be.”  Dammit — that makes me angry all over again.  I knew at the time that I didn’t want to be miserable, but the idea is so insidious, especially when the real reason for the misery is hidden in repression and denial.  The real reason for my misery as a teenager, or one of them at least, was because my father molested me when I was twelve and my sexuality shut down as a result.  I was dealing with anger and grief that couldn’t be expressed because I thought what had happened was no big deal.  Dammit dammit dammit.  Well, now I notice that the anger has to some extent dissolved the depression, there’s warmth where there was coldness.

I notice that anger has “to some extent” dissolved the depression, which suggests that my depression was caused by a lot of repressed anger. Thinking about it now, I wonder if I didn’t know deep inside that my parents were lying to me about who I was. Certainly that’s what mother did. And it both convinced me that I was her mis-representation, and made me angry.

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From 1994: Prayer? Paradigm Shift? Manifestation?

Posted on April 7, 2023 by jenny

From my journal for October 26, 1994

I’ve been wanting to pray, but not knowing who to pray to, or even what to pray for.  I finally asked for clarity: to see the truth; for courage: to act on what I see; for health & physical energy, or if that wasn’t possible, for patience to deal with the lethargy.  I talked to Jesus/Avalokiteshvara/Kannon as the most real being I’m aware of that I could ask for these things.  I guess I really don’t know how to pray — is it the intensity or sincerity of the request or how often the petition is made that “counts”? — whatever that means.  I realize as I try to pray, that I don’t see the divine beings as being motivated by the same things as humans: not likely to respond quickly to anguish, or be worn down by repeated requests, or manipulated by emotion, or angered by a failure to follow the form.  So then, if they just listen, and watch with compassion, what is the point of praying?

Back then, I didn’t believe in God, I couldn’t possibly say “Thy will be done.”  I do have a sense that there are “divine beings” who one might ask for help, but clearly I’m struggling with how to do this.

And then I periodically have such an odd sense of the world being a radically different place than the one I’m used to.  Instead of a bunch of solid objects, which change according to rigid rules, and the most important things being money, and politics, and how will I pay the taxes and what will the neighbors think, the world seems to be much more fluid, things bloom and fade, dissolve and transform, money and social values are not important at all. 

I do still occasionally get caught in the materialist paradigm, but it’s rare, and I can say “I choose to trust…”

Part of this is coming from building Neskaya — the foundation walls are almost done, may even have been completed yesterday, and the shape is clear on the ground, we can see what size it’s going to be, the location of the alcoves.  The size seems just right: not too big, not too small.  It is really clear now that we are building a cathedral (for lack of a better word), a temple, a “unique sculptural presence.”  I’m tempted to call the bathroom wing the “apse” because it looks like one, a faceted circular shape bulging out of the main body of the building.  (Looking it up, I see that “apse” is correct: “A semi-circular or polygonal, usually domed, projection of a building, especially the altar or east end of a church.”)  Understanding that we are building a cathedral allows me to let go of the money, be willing to spend what we have to.  I have just the barest hint that this is god acting through me and therefore correct, but it’s confusing because all I have to act on is the inner sense of knowing or wanting or willing, but no outer sense that I am pleasing some great being “out there” who really wants this done.  Nor do I have any sense of help coming from outside in the form of synchronicity: it’s not at all like when I decided to make a trip to see the megaliths and everything fell into place.  No wonder I feel bereft.  There aren’t any signals coming from anywhere to tell me what to do, to let me know that what I am doing is “right” — whatever that means.  “Right for me” — what would that mean? something that furthers my growth, increases my compassion and self-knowledge?  “Right for the world” — it’s tempting to see that in terms of the standard idea of a contribution: does it make money, or help other people in some obvious way, does it make the world a better place to live in? does it make the world more beautiful, or cleaner, or safer, does it create peace or kindliness?  By some of those measures anyway, Neskaya could be said to be something “right for the world.”  But I also feel very strongly, with the part of me that “knows” (not intellectual knowing, but some other kind of knowing, more inward, that’s easier to doubt because I can’t look it up in a book) that what is right for me is also, automatically, what is right for the world, even if what is right for me is to try to create comfort or safety for myself by hiding and reading Elizabeth Goudge, or to try to understand myself by writing in here even if it never gets published, never has any value for anyone else.

Nothing like building a building that has no value in our culture — it’s not even a church of a recognized religion — to make you really question what the hell you are doing, and also open you up to a different paradigm.

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The Body Keeps the Score, Reprise

Posted on March 26, 2023 by jenny

This was originally posted in February 2015

Bessel Van Der Kolk is one of my heroes.  I went to the first weekend workshop he ever gave at Kripalu, wondering what such a high-powered academic was doing at that center for yoga and health.  Turns out he had done a study showing that yoga was better than prozac in reducing the symptoms of PTSD.  So he had hired a male yoga teacher for his veterans, and a female yoga teacher for his sexual assault victims.  I really admired him for trying to find out what would really help his patients, not just accepting what others thought.  He was willing to look at alternatives to standard medicine. He had done a study that showed that EMDR worked better than prozac.  “So then,” he said, “you give all your clients their money back, or you take the damn training.”  Not only did he take the training, he had them come do the training for his whole staff.

His book, “The Body Keeps the Score,” was recently published.  My therapist Erica said she was reading it and really impressed.  So I got the book and started reading.  But I got triggered, and when I got to the part about different attachment styles, I got so badly triggered that I had to stop reading.  That was back in November.  I did write down in my journal what the different styles were.  “Attachment” refers to the earliest bonding between an infant and its mother or primary caretaker.  “Disorganized attachment” is what happens when mother is necessary for survival but a source of fear.  “Fright without solution.”

The last couple of days I was feeling so much better that I thought I would try to read more.  And I did, enjoying it very much.  Lots of validating information.

“After a while most people with PTSD don’t spend a great deal of time or effort on dealing with the past — their problem is simply making it through the day.  Even traumatized patients who are making real contributions in teaching, business, medicine, or the arts and who are successfully raising their children expend a lot more energy on the everyday tasks of living than do ordinary mortals.”  p246

“The insula can transmit signals to the amygdala that trigger fight/flight responses.  This does not require any cognitive input or any conscious recognition that something has gone awry — you just feel on edge and unable to focus or, at worst, have a sense of imminent doom.  These powerful feelings are generated deep inside the brain and cannot be eliminated by reason or understanding.”  p247  The “insula” is the part of the brain that integrates sensations coming from inside the body.  The “amygdala” is the part of the brain that detects danger.  In a traumatized person the amygdala can be very sensitive.  That feeling of “imminent doom” is one I know well.  I’ve been in it for days and even weeks at a time.  “Imminent doom” combined with the inability to focus happens when I’m packing to go somewhere.  It’s not as bad as it once was.  Years ago I would feel like I was blind.

“Like several of my other traumatized patients, Kathy was able to become completely absorbed in her studies.  When she read a book or wrote a research paper, she could block out everything else about her life.  This enabled her to be a competent student, even when she had no idea how to establish a loving relationship with herself, let alone with an intimate partner.”  pp256-7    This describes me exactly.  It’s why reading is my “drug of choice,” the thing that allows me to escape from the pain of my life for a time.

Added now: It’s also how I managed to graduate from Wellesley College with honors, but continue to struggle with issues affected by trauma.

I also had an experience I didn’t understand at the time, but realized that it was an example of “disorganized attachment.”  In a therapy session I scrambled to get away from a cushion the therapist was moving toward me across the rug. I remember thinking “Am I afraid of mother? I know I don’t respect her, but afraid?”

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Three Important Realizations

Posted on March 25, 2023 by jenny

I had three very important realizations this last week.  From my journal:

Monday, March 20

Reading Rohr on the twelve steps, can’t remember which step it is.  You’re supposed to tell to another person and to God the things you have been doing wrong.  Then the next step is “Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.”  You ask God, because of course if you try to do it yourself your own patterns will come into play and it becomes another way of control.

Richard Rohr’s book on the Twelve Steps is Breathing Underwater.  The one about asking God to help me struck me for the first time.  I’ve been trying to “fix myself,” for most of my life.  It’s actually an impossible undertaking. Realizing that I could ask God was a relief, the same relief I feel when I say “Thy will be done.”

Tuesday, March 21

3rd cup. coffee.     I don’t have to be worthy to be blessed!  I don’t have to be worthy to be loved!   It was in the CAC’s offering today.  O my goodness what a lift it’s given me.  I can see Jenny, that mixed bag, good at teaching but painfully shy, kind but unable to express herself well in conversation…  and I love her.

This one was astounding. I always assumed I had to do everything right to be loved. I certainly never felt loved by my parents. They always criticized me, so I got the idea that they would love me if I got something right. Of course, when I did something right, they didn’t praise me, so I didn’t really know it was right, and certainly didn’t feel loved.  When I told a friend, she said “Of course you’re worthy to be loved,” but that wasn’t the insight. It was recognizing that “worthiness” had nothing to do with love, that I didn’t have to try to be worthy.

Seeing myself as a “mixed bag” felt like the first time I actually had a true picture of who I am. Finding that I could love her so easily was also a new experience.

On March 22 I was reading Jack Kornfield’s book A Lamp in the Darkness. It’s a series of stories with meditations afterward. One called “Shared Compassion” was quite wonderful, similar to the lovingkindness one. But it spoke about “Pains and Sorrows,” which gave me a whole new slant. “May you be held in compassion. May your pains and sorrows be eased. May you be at peace.” I started saying it for myself, and then for everyone I met or thought about. I found it quite wonderful to think “May your pains and sorrows be eased,” to people I always imagined had no pains and sorrows.

I found myself offering it to residents who I thought were dealing with pains and sorrows as well as ones who seemed fine. Even to Donald Trump! A practice I can do easily that will help the world I love!

 

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To Take Care of Myself with Love

Posted on March 19, 2023 by jenny

The last few days I’ve been struggling with the feeling of being totally disconnected. Today it suddenly occurred to me that that feeling was not me, but one of the very young traumatized parts. As soon as I saw that I stopped being burdened by the sense of complete failure and helplessness. I could see the very young part, probably a baby, a long distance away, perhaps even hidden by something resembling rock. Caring about her, and reaching out to her helped, even though I’m not yet able to connect with her.

This morning I went to fill a glass of water. I have to put electrolytes in it to make sure my body can hydrate with it. The extra step feels like a burden. I asked Higher Self, who said that it was a good thing to take care of myself, but “You need to do it because you love yourself, not because it’s chore that you have to do to keep going.” So that’s the work I need to do. find a way to love myself.

Today I’ve been reading a post from January 2015, about Nancy Napier’s book “Getting Through the Day; Strategies for Adults Hurt as Children” where she says:

For children who were traumatized, there was an undeniable need to be rescued.  Sometimes it’s hard to let go of an experience that feels so real, so immediate.  To imagine that you can take care of yourself might feel as overwhelming as it was then — and as unachievable.   p137

I go on to write an affirmation that was helpful at the time.

I am an integral part of the Universe, and it doesn’t matter how well or how poorly I do my life, what matters is my integrity, authenticity, and my fierce commitment to truth and to compassion.  What I actually accomplish is nowhere near as important as the values I embody.  ‘Whatever you have done or not done’ is not what god cares about, is not what god’s doing in my life.  God is the Truth and the Compassion I embody.

It’s a very helpful reminder to myself today as I try to find the way to take care of myself with love, not as a chore.

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“May all beings be held in lovingkindness”

Posted on March 7, 2023 by jenny

Monday, March 6     Writing group:

Nothing to say.    No where to go.    Once upon a time I was able to do left hand writing.  I called it that, but it wasn’t literally writing with my left hand, it was tuning into the other part of my brain.  I don’t know why I can’t do it now.

There was a broken chord, wavering transparent, but outside all elementary clouds waving and streaming but not into shapes that would cohere into ideas  figments of perception  fragments of misunderstanding under the purple light of the far-off stars moving swiftly away.

And then there was silence.   No I can hear a far off voice probably someone’s TV   can’t hear what it’s saying   maybe even an ad — a whole culture built around getting people to buy things they don’t need…

Once upon a time people lived in tribes, in clans, in massive interconnected families.  Now we are all alone, feeling ourselves separate and disconnected even though the truth is that we are all interconnected.  I think my thoughts are my own, but then some very strange thoughts go through my head and I wonder where the hell did that come from?  It’s only much later that I remember that on the empath test I scored very high so I am surely an empath so lots of thoughts and feelings that pass through me are not “mine,” in quotes.

What am I thinking/feeling now?  A folded crane, a desperate fear, another news story about something gone wrong, at some deep level.  The deeper we get into it, the more complex it gets, all those threads tangling and how can we possibly see how to control it or change its direction or …     but the complexity doesn’t matter because it’s all really simple, the only thing is to love the most miserable, sad, frightened being so it can feel held, cupped in a pair of loving hands.

Last year I participated in a series of talks presented by the Elisabeth Kubler Ross Institute.  One of the speakers was Matt Kahn, who spoke about life after death.  He said one of the most important things we can do is “learning to love our most fragile, frightened, and unworthy parts.” This struck me as something VERY IMPORTANT for me, because I tend to get angry at my weaker parts. So I have been working on it for a long time and it’s getting easier and more natural. It’s also true that my most basic practice, that I turn to when my mind is wandering or I’m paying attention to something I don’t want to support, is the lovingkindness practice. Sometimes I remember to do it, sometimes my mind just starts repeating “May all beings be held in lovingkindness,” which is of course the source of the image of the cupped hands.

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Who is “Myself”?

Posted on March 4, 2023 by jenny

From my journal for Monday, January 23

Lying in bed before I got up, I didn’t feel like myself.  When I got up, I asked myself “Who knows I don’t feel like myself?”  — and who is it who asks?

Written in writing group on Monday, February 27

Well, what to write about.  The thing I typed up.  I don’t feel like myself.  Who is it who asks that question?  Today I’ve been feeling very odd.  A little wobbly but not so much physically as emotionally.  What kinds of emotions?  Well now that’s a difficult question. not so much sad or happy as amused, annoyed, then confused, then caught by the color of a cloud — wanting to write about it but not having subtle enough words so I just kept looking: soft gentle colors of clouds and sky, fading into each other, fading away with almost a gentle, sad, taste ?  like black raspberry frozen yogurt —    then knowing I have to go out and do an errand, pick up a prescription at CVS, there are other things I need to get —— o but I can’t be bothered to figure that out now, I would get overwhelmed.  Got there and I had forgotten to wear a mask, there’s a mask in the car but it’s too far to walk back.

Something that’s not clear in this writing is that there is a scared child part who needs to be protected.  I choose to protect myself from being overwhelmed, but don’t really know why.

I look out into the night and see windows across the courtyard, one with bright lights, several with much dimmer lights, perhaps behind curtains and trees with bare twigs in front so they look like odd glittery shapes not something recognizable as a window.

I’m looking out the window of the room we’re writing in.  I did that on another writing night about a month before.

That’s how I feel, lots of pieces, broken up into glitter, unrecognizable as any particular thing.

I hear a hissing in my ear.  I’ve had it since I got on imipramine 25 years ago about.  I also stopped remembering my dreams.  They feel like big losses, silence and dreams.

What does that mean, I don’t feel like myself?  Do I feel like myself right now, broken into glittery bits?  No, it’s myself that recognizes the glittery bits as what? parts of me, all seen from a particular angle, and all held in a large shape which is myself. that feels right.  Like when I’m feeling very scared and then I stand behind the scared young one and put my hands on her shoulders and tell her it’s OK to be scared, she is still loved.

The “large shape” that holds my parts is “myself.”  Somehow that seems right to me, Though I’m not sure I can explain it.

The looseness of this writing reflects a deep relaxation in how I’m going about my life.  My therapist comments that my parts have “a lot more breathing room.”  I think I have majorly let go of the need to get everything “right.”

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Let Grief Speak

Posted on February 25, 2023 by jenny

Monday, February 20     Writing group:

I want to write about grief.  Hard to get into. ask my grief to speak.

Grief, what do you have to say?

So deep and old.  So long ago.  Grief never allowed, never assuaged.  “I cried and cried and nobody came.”  This is a baby speaking, a baby left alone calling for help. and there was no answer.  Silence is painful.  Silence is scary.  What am I grieving for?  What I should have had and didn’t get.  But how do I know what I should have had if I never get it?  It’s not like when you have something and lose it.  You know what you’ve lost.  There’s a hole in your heart.  So it’s possible to grieve.  It’s imperative to grieve, it’s unhealthy to not grieve — but you need the help and support of other people.  When you were a child and cried you were sent to your room.  You learned that it was not OK to cry.  When you were a teenager, you were able to cry alone, when a romance went wrong.  One time you had a date with someone and he didn’t show up.  You cried, and then you found yourself dancing.  I think you were actually angry — but as a woman you are not allowed to express anger — but the dancing expressed your feelings and you ended up happy.  Much later, you remembered that and thought that you should have built into your life as a technique you could use when you needed it.

But what are you grieving now?  I’m grieving what’s happening to the elephants, and the whales, and the dolphins. what’s happening to the oceans filling with plastic and the animals killed by tangles of plastic.  I’m grieving all the black people killed by police, all the people who aren’t being paid enough so they have to choose between food and medical expenses.  That’s so wrong.  I don’t feel grief I feel anger, it’s not OK that greedy rich people have set things up that way.  Then I start to feel hopeless and helpless.

Then I look at the last few months of my life.  Struggling with low thyroid, damage to my ribs, no energy, needing to exercise, struggling with a deadly combination of early trauma and the social distancing of COVID.

And the whole thing about asking for help.  It is so hard.  My parents made me wrong for asking for help, but even before that, my non-verbal cries for help were often unanswered.  It was right at the beginning I learned not to ask for anything.

NOTE: “What I should have had and didn’t get” is Francis Weller’s Fourth Gate of Grief

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Needing to Find a Way to Grieve

Posted on February 20, 2023 by jenny

Written in Writing Group on January 2:

Back in July I caught my foot in the electric cord to my fan and fell on my side hurting my hip and doing something to my ribs so they continue to hurt.  It has been getting very gradually better.  Then, a couple of weeks ago I knocked a bottle off the counter, grabbed for it, and did something to my pectoral muscles tho I didn’t feel it for a day and a half.  Then it hurt like bloody hell, which means 10 on a scale of 10.  Fortunately, it didn’t last very long at that level, but it would hurt whenever I reached for something or picked something up.  Made it very difficult to use my arms for things like dressing and undressing.  Elisabeth Kubler-Ross says if you don’t learn from something you will get hit with something worse.  So what am I failing to learn from these injuries?

I used to self-mutilate, I cut myself with razor blades for a period of about 6 years in my 20’s.  Ellen Bass says that can be a result of childhood sexual abuse, but later I learned that it made much more sense as a result of trauma.  Jacqueline Winspear says of soldiers traumatized during World War I that they would injure themselves as if to make visible the wounds to their souls.

I always felt that my pain wasn’t visible because it was inner emotional pain instead of external pain like living in poverty, or starving, or being beaten.  So what was the point of injuring my ribs?  A friend who knows about Chinese medicine said that the lungs represent grief.  Breathing deeply comes up against constricted ribs, coughing still hurts badly in the center of my upper chest.  I know that I have grief that is hard to feel because it’s not grief for something I had and lost, but grief for something I should have had and never got.  And in fact, I had no idea of what I hadn’t gotten until my most recent therapist started giving me lots of positive detailed feedback.  At first I wanted more, and then it became painful and Erica introduced me to Francis Weller who’s done a lot of work on grief.  Sitting here writing, I think maybe that’s it.  I realize that the last few days I’ve been feeling very sad.  Not depressed, sad, along with a quality of despair that I haven’t felt before.  I just want it to be over.  I’m so tired I can barely function.

I also read something I wrote in the last month about being able to love the one in me who’s angry at me for hurting myself.  Is hurting myself also an expression of being angry at myself?

More to do…

[After I read this, Judith says:]
Let my grief write itself.    ask Are you able to speak?
sad = mudflats, tide out.

But I didn’t follow Judith’s ideas.  I realize I had just been through Christmas week when I didn’t talk to my therapist at all. This leaves me feeling very alone. Also that the fall that injured my ribs happened after my thyroid dropped significantly. So a lot of different things have been affecting my emotions and the clarity of my brain. It’s too easy to avoid grief. I want to write about it in the next writing group.

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