Woke up feeling uncomfortable.\u00a0 Not depressed, not scared, not contented.\u00a0 Not satisfied.\u00a0 I think I was really confused by what Erica said.\u00a0 We were talking about me starting a women\u2019s writing\/support group.\u00a0 I told her about my conversation with Yvette, how she & a friend wanted to start a group.\u00a0 The question came up: \u201cWhat do you want to get out of it?\u201d\u00a0 Yvette\u2019s friend said \u201cI want to be inspired.\u201d\u00a0 Yvette decided that\u2019s what she wanted too.\u00a0 I said what I wanted to get out of it was finding other people who had experiences like me, so I wouldn\u2019t feel so isolated.\u00a0 Or I would find out that people had different problems but still had pain in their lives.\u00a0 Erica said something describing what she thought I would get out of it.\u00a0 I wish I had written it down because it\u2019s completely gone.\u00a0 I think she was describing the experience of someone much bigger than me, so different from who I think I am \u2014 who mother taught me I was \u2014 that I just can\u2019t take it in.\u00a0 Can\u2019t even remember it.<\/p>\n
I think about my amnesia for the nasty things<\/a> mother said to me.\u00a0 I seem to have a similar mechanism for shutting out the good things people say about me.\u00a0 But what mother said went deep anyway, whereas the good things seem to bounce off.\u00a0 What comes to me is that it\u2019s just too painful to accept that I might be \u2014 might have been all along \u2014 not a \u201cgood\u201d person, but an inspiring, exciting, generous one who changes people\u2019s lives…\u00a0 and I have ignored her, disparaged her, tried to shut her down, been totally unaware of all the good she does in the world.\u00a0 Now I feel her near me, full of love, she puts her arms around me.\u00a0 I feel loved.\u00a0 I don\u2019t feel forgiven, it feels more like it doesn\u2019t matter to her, my\u00a0thoughts didn\u2019t hurt her.\u00a0 I think about Nadia<\/a> saying that God uses not just our gifts, but our faults.<\/p>\n I wonder where Tiny is in all this.\u00a0 Is it Tiny who\u2019s suddenly bigger than I am?\u00a0 I think of the Red Woman<\/a> who expanded out of me in bodywork with Debra all those years ago.<\/p>\n I\u2019m puzzling over \u201cwhat does all this mean?\u201d and \u201cWhat am I to do<\/span>?\u201d<\/p>\n I think of the projects I started, full of inspiration and then ran down.\u00a0 Well, the box of stories<\/a> went on for a while and then ran aground.\u00a0 When?\u00a0 When I got Damien<\/a>?\u00a0 There was my excitement about Rob Bell<\/a> and Father Greg<\/a>.\u00a0 After I read their books, I was inspired for a few days, and then my excitement faded and I was back \u2014 not really in depression-land \u2014 but in some sort of grey flat place where there\u2019s no color and no life.<\/p>\n No no NO I don\u2019t want to sink back into that lethargy, I want to stretch into this new life, become that person who I don\u2019t know and don\u2019t believe I am.\u00a0 Erica gives me so much positive feedback.\u00a0 I feel like I\u2019ve been hungry for this all my life, and then I don\u2019t know what to do with it.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd he will raise\u00a0you up on eagles wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of his hand.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s what\u2019s been singing itself in my mind.\u00a0 I think how what is scary is the idea of expanding when I don\u2019t feel held.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s the fear of mother attacking me.<\/p>\n This all feels like an enormous confusing tangle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Woke up feeling uncomfortable.\u00a0 Not depressed, not scared, not contented.\u00a0 Not satisfied.\u00a0 I think I was really confused by what Erica said.\u00a0 We were talking about me starting a women\u2019s writing\/support group.\u00a0 I told her about my conversation with Yvette, … Continue reading