Precious Petunia Pumpkin Muffin

Posted on September 6, 2013 by jenny

AKA Bella, Bella Bellissima Padme Hum, Punkledunchkin, You Wretch.  My sweet companion of the last 10 years has gone to the Rainbow Bridge, where she can be seen cavorting happily.

bellasweatersmall

 

The best description of her occurs in Zajko Kokorajko, the music for a dance called Arap. The name of the music is “The Rabbit’s Wedding.”  The rabbit’s bride is Widow Fox:

a flowery bouquet,
a spoiled pet,
a well-known fussy eater,
an avoider of work,
The village fussbudget!

I miss her dreadfully and at the same time I can feel her liberated spirit wiggling in joy, and the love she has for me and the love I have for her are all around me, and in my heart.

Posted in Present Day | Comments Off on Precious Petunia Pumpkin Muffin

The Power of Self-Compassion

Posted on September 5, 2013 by jenny

Since I’ve been practicing self-compassion for a long time, and recently got more serious about it, it was great to read this story.  I subscribe to the “Daily Good,” and get a piece of good news everyday.  Many of them have been very helpful.  This link opens a page where you can subscribe if you want to, as well as read The Power of Self-Compassion

http://www.dailygood.org/view.php?sid=211

Posted in Healing, Interesting link, Present Day | Comments Off on The Power of Self-Compassion

Low Energy

Posted on September 1, 2013 by jenny

Looking through my Resource Notebook, I found this in July 2009.

Caryn said that this time of low energy, of “doing nothing” is a time when healing is going on deep inside.  It’s not on a conscious level, so I’m not aware of it, but it is taking energy, that’s why I’m so tired.

So if that’s true, then the best thing to do is offer myself to the process.  I can distract my conscious mind with reading, typing, Solitaire and Puzzles.  I don’t have to do anything “worthwhile.”  That’s probably why I’m having such a hard time replying to emails from Susan and Catherine.  Healing on a deep level also resonates with what Eve told me when I visited her last week.

Accepting my lack of energy as valid, I find that I can write those letters after all.

Posted in Healing, Present Day | Comments Off on Low Energy

Treating the Pain like an Honored Guest

Posted on August 31, 2013 by jenny

Friday

My heart aches.  This is the other side of loving Bella.  I accept the ache as the price of loving.  I would not choose to refuse the love in order to avoid the pain.  I put my arms around myself and tell her I love her because she’s willing to accept the pain.  And the pain fades.  What can I say?   Thank you.

Friday, a week later

My heart is hurting.  I don’t know why and I’m certainly not treating it as an honored guest.  Dear Heart, I know you’ve been hurt a lot.  You’ve been battered and bruised and stabbed.  You’ve been burnt and poisoned, you’ve opened yourself to love and been rejected over and over.  You want so badly to give good things to the world, but you’ve been shamed so many times it’s hard to feel your gifts are worth offering.  Dear Heart, I love you, and I know some of your pain is about loving and losing Bella.  I would not choose to not love Bella and avoid this pain.  I’m willing to bear this pain as the price of loving.  And there’s pain for the earth too, so badly treated and exploited, and pain for all the people, especially children, who are being abused and exploited and trashed.  I feel honored to be with this pain, it’s the other side of my caring for the world and it’s creatures, including human beings.  It wouldn’t hurt so much if I didn’t care so much.  And I’m not going to stop caring.

This time the pain lasted most of the day, and faded so slowly I failed to notice.  I have finally learned how to do this.  The problem with having the pain fade when honestly accepted, is that the next time it’s too easy to “accept it” as a means of getting it to go away. This doesn’t work.  You have to truly want it to stay as long as it needs to, and then it doesn’t matter if it goes away or not.

Posted in Healing, Journal, Present Day, Trauma | Comments Off on Treating the Pain like an Honored Guest

Bodhisattva Vow

Posted on August 30, 2013 by jenny

Written in July 2009

I can’t remember the session with Caryn very well.  I went back to my corner and told her how I had gotten “too big” and needed to pull back.  I had brought the doll I had made and I held her and cried a lot.  Caryn said something about the physiology of grief, how it helped disconnect things in the brain.  I did some subtle discharge, and she gave me detailed feedback.  I said how meaningful had been her image of the chord, feeling several feelings at once, and told her how I had been able to have both my sadness and the beauty of the day.  She said I was widening the banks of consciousness to include more life energy.  Even when I don’t fully understand what she’s saying, I think her feedback is giving me the kind of mirroring I didn’t get in childhood.  I told her how I had healed from the airplane phobia, and then cried and mourned for the 14 years in bondage to fear of planes and airports.  So much life wasted.  At one point, I don’t know why the thought came to me, maybe it was the memory of Deena saying the greatest Bodhisattvas are found in the deepest hells, I thought that if I were a Bodhisattva who had chosen this lifetime for the purpose of healing, then I wouldn’t feel that it had been wasted at all.  I told Caryn about the exercise with Deena and how when I heard the call to return to earth, my heart went out to the blue-green planet — Oh! Earth! — and I stood right up, ready to go back.  O my.  If that were true.  I sit here feeling a kind of amazed joy.   Caryn said I embodied compassion — I said “to be the change you want to see in the world.”

The Bodhisattva Vow is to keep returning to life on earth until all living beings are enlightened.

Posted in Somatic Experiencing, Spirit | Comments Off on Bodhisattva Vow

Guidance

Posted on August 29, 2013 by jenny

(Written in July 2009)

Dear Guides and Guardian Spirits, I’m feeling a little sad and scared and lonely.  Can you help me?

Dear Jenny, relax.  Let your weight sink down into the couch.  You are truly supported by the earth under you, by the large group of people for whom Neskaya is important, and by many spirits including us.  It is truly OK for you to do nothing.  We know that this is still a little scary for you.  You have driven yourself, your whole life, to prove that you deserve to live.  So it’s a little scary to let go of that ancient conditioned behavior.  But it never was necessary, it was your child’s mind who thought that if she could just do something “right” she would get the love that was in fact her birthright, she should have been getting it all along.  Later, when it became clear that nothing you did would please your parents, you projected the one who needs to be pleased onto the great “Them”, on to god, spirit, the Universe, still trying to prove that you deserve to live.  None of that was necessary.  Just the fact of your existence proves that the Universe was not complete without Jenny, just as she is.  Do let yourself relax and take it in.

Posted in Guidance | Comments Off on Guidance

Guidance

Posted on August 28, 2013 by jenny

(Written in May 2009)

Dear Guides & Guardian Spirits, I’m in pretty rough shape.  A little scared, a little fragile, a little depressed.  I’m feeling cold and distant, and don’t have much hope for the future.  This struggle out of depression is taking much longer than it has before.  Please help me.

Dear Jenny, hang on.  You are doing very good work, very deep work and it has results in the energy foundation of the earth.  By working with your psyche, working to heal your deep pain, you are also helping to heal the deep wounds of the earth.  We know it’s very hard work, and confusing, and full of pain, times of horror, and lostness, and bleakness.  This is a necessary part of the healing.  You must feel these stages as you pass through them.  You must take it on trust that you are moving, even when it doesn’t feel like it.  We are doing our best to support and strengthen you to do this work.  We wish you could feel our presence, but know that’s hard for you.  We love you and honor you for the deep work you are doing.

Posted in Guidance, Trauma | Comments Off on Guidance

Guidance

Posted on August 27, 2013 by jenny

(Written in February 2009)

Dear Guides and Guardian Spirits, I’m feeling very lost and confused.  I’ve no idea what happened to me, why I’ve collapsed so badly.  I’ve no idea what to do except follow Dr. Seigle’s program for medication and keep working with Karen and Caryn.  The life I had is gone, and I don’t know how to keep going.  I’ve been asking God to please show me what he/she/it/they want me to do with what’s left.  But I haven’t had any answer. Can you help me?

Dear Jenny, you are greatly loved.  Relax and try to let some of it reach you, drop by drop.  You are needing to grieve that your childhood was so barren and that the lack of support set you up for a lifetime of stumbles and failures.  Despite this you have managed to create good things and good changes in people’s lives.  Your task now is to let yourself heal.  This is what “god” wants you to do.  Following Dr. Seigle’s program and asking for help are very important parts of your healing.  You are in a healing process.  We know it’s hard for you that it moves so slowly.  This is an indicator of the depth of the damage, not that you are doing anything wrong.  Dear Jenny, you are much too hard on yourself and you have totally unreasonable expectations of what you can do, and you fail to give yourself credit for the hard work you have done and for your courage in keeping going.  Remember that we love and support you and are all around you.

Posted in Breakdown, Guidance | Comments Off on Guidance

“Big Heart”

Posted on August 26, 2013 by jenny

Written in April 2009

With Karen I talked about having trouble taking in the love that’s there for me.  Karen said I was “lovable” and I cried and turned away.  She said I have a big heart.  I thought how can anyone love such a miserable blot as I am, and then I remembered loving Ruffles, miserable little kitty that he was, and that moment when I saw Daddy — miserable shrunken excuse for a human that he was — and was able to love him just as he was.  The only times I was able to feel love for mother were when she said something like “I’m not feeling very good about myself right now.” But she hardly ever let herself be vulnerable.  I see that when someone’s vulnerable and hurting my heart immediately goes out to them.  Maybe that’s what Karen means when she says I have a big heart.  And maybe that’s something unusual and worthwhile in a culture that tends to attack people when they are vulnerable.

Posted in Depression, Healing | Comments Off on “Big Heart”

How Depression Makes Life Harder

Posted on August 25, 2013 by jenny

Written in April 2009 during the Training in Women’s Ritual Dance, given at Neskaya by Laura Shannon.

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.

 

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.

Posted in Depression | Comments Off on How Depression Makes Life Harder