Friday, August 21<\/p>\n
I went in to Karen feeling lost.\u00a0 I said \u201cI don\u2019t know what to do with my life\u201d and saw it stretching grey before me.\u00a0 Karen was very fierce \u201cYour dancing, your art, your writing…\u201d\u00a0 She said I had been forced to be hypervigilant as a child, and it was still there, built into my cells and nervous system.\u00a0 That\u2019s why I\u2019m constantly looking to see if things are OK, to see if something\u2019s gone wrong, to see if something\u2019s getting better.\u00a0 She said I needed to stop evaluating, needed to stop comparing things to the past.\u00a0 That I needed to get that I was OK in the present moment.\u00a0 At one point, while I was seeing myself as defective and discouraged, she said \u201cIt\u2019s not your fault.\u201d\u00a0 Of course!\u00a0 I\u2019m blaming myself for being discouraged as though it were my fault.\u00a0 That helped.\u00a0 So I\u2019ve started telling myself \u201cI\u2019m OK, just as I am, in this moment.\u201d\u00a0 I said it all the way home, and all through the dancing.<\/p>\n
I came out of Karen\u2019s office feeling like just as I was, I was doing the Will of God.\u00a0 I heard a huge, quiet, resounding \u201cyes.\u201d\u00a0 Maybe I have grandiose expectations for what \u201cdoing the will of God\u201d would look like.\u00a0 On the \u201cdays of grace<\/a>\u201d I didn\u2019t do anything different, I just felt OK with how I was, and accepted everything that happened.\u00a0 They felt magical at the time, they were truly \u201cgrace,\u201d not something I made happen.\u00a0 I accept that I can\u2019t make it happen again.\u00a0 I see that my practice: of being in the present as best I can, and accepting everything as best I can, whether or not I feel good about it, or even OK or content, is what I am called to do.\u00a0 \u201cWe are not called to be successful but to be faithful.<\/a>\u201d\u00a0 When I feel discouraged or depressed or despairing, I can do my best to accept it.<\/p>\n I see that I\u2019ve given up healing \u2014 \u201call better now\u201d \u2014 as a goal.\u00a0 That has left me bereft, as I felt bereft when I saw that my motive for writing was \u201cto prove that I deserve to live<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 So I\u2019ve been puzzling over whether to keep seeing Erica if I\u2019m no longer trying to heal.\u00a0 But I can\u2019t imagine stopping.\u00a0 I love her.\u00a0 The work we\u2019re doing together is meaningful even if it never gets anywhere.\u00a0 Besides, I can\u2019t not do it, just as I couldn\u2019t stop writing.<\/p>\n The song in my head is \u201cAnd he will raise you up on eagle\u2019s wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of his hands.\u201d<\/p>\n Saturday, August 22<\/p>\n I visited\u00a0Barbara and we talked about \u201cattachment.\u201d\u00a0 Barbara brought up the idea that one could be attached to depression.\u00a0 That scared me.\u00a0 I think of how hard I\u2019ve worked, and how the \u201cdays of grace<\/a>\u201d don\u2019t last.\u00a0 I remember my father saying \u201cYou just want to be miserable.\u201d\u00a0 The idea that I go back to it because it\u2019s comfortable.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what to do with this.\u00a0 I realize as I\u2019m writing this that I don\u2019t find depression comfortable, I find the days of grace comfortable.<\/p>\n I am profoundly discouraged.\u00a0 I look at all the clutter I want to get rid of.\u00a0 It seems like an impossible task but I\u2019ve been able to chip away at it with Christia\u2019s help.\u00a0 I guess that\u2019s the best I can do.\u00a0 Keep chipping away.\u00a0 Be in the present as best I can.\u00a0 Try to accept whatever comes.<\/p>\n Sunday, August 23<\/p>\n Feeling OK this morning.\u00a0 Just as I am, I\u2019m OK right now.\u00a0 Very grateful for hot tea.\u00a0 Reading Richard Rohr<\/a> on the twelve steps (I\u2019m taking the book with me to Rowe) and I had a sudden flash of something \u2014 it felt like an enormous liberation \u2014 it was something about how God loved my faults as well as my strengths \u2014 but that doesn\u2019t verbalize it adequately.\u00a0 Maybe it was an experience<\/span> of God loving all of me.\u00a0 Gives me hope to keep going.<\/p>\n Later in the day:<\/p>\n Hope.\u00a0 From the momentary flash of god\u2019s love even though I\u2019m not perfect, and also, even though I\u2019ve given up the goal of healing \u2014 I\u2019ll always be wounded, just as an alcoholic is always an alcoholic \u2014 but I can practice being in the present, and accepting what comes my way.<\/p>\n Did I say that I realized that since all my prayers to God to use me, to guide me to do his\/her\/its\/their will, have brought no response, other than the occasional \u201cYou\u2019re doing it now,\u201d \u2014 all this had left me disappointed, because unconsciously I had the expectation that \u201cdoing god\u2019s will\u201d would look a lot bigger than that.\u00a0 I told Barbara \u201cThat\u2019s ego.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019m glad, and a bit amused, to see this.<\/p>\n Monday, August 24<\/p>\n (At Rowe<\/a> for Kindred Spirits<\/a>)<\/p>\n I\u2019m seeing that my goal of \u201cgetting healthy\u201d and \u201chaving a life,\u201d was arrogant and I need to let it go.\u00a0 The days of grace were just that, gifts that I hadn\u2019t earned and couldn\u2019t make happen.<\/p>\n To be grateful for today: speaking my truth in Grief Group.\u00a0 Good food.\u00a0 Glad to have people around so I haven\u2019t felt lonely or depressed or anxious.<\/p>\n \u201cHumbly asked God…\u201d\u00a0 I am humble when I ask God to \u201cbless and keep\u201d Mocha, Lynelle, Daria, etc.\u00a0 I know it might not turn out the way I want it to.\u00a0 But I haven\u2019t asked for healing for myself, I\u2019ve been trying to get there by my own hard work.<\/p>\n Tuesday, August 25<\/p>\n Question to ask of soul, turned into a dialogue.\u00a0 Is what I am doing now what I should be doing?\u00a0 Is the way I am living helping me open to grace?\u00a0 It is not what you do in the physical realm, but how you do it that opens to grace.\u00a0 Let go of the outcome.<\/p>\n Walking outside, looking for objects that might be my soul talking to me.\u00a0 The message I got was that I could totally trust my inner knowing \u2014 of what to take, what not to take even tho it drew my eyes, when to stop.\u00a0 I made a small grouping of things at the north end of the table.<\/p>\n How I allow myself to be guided by Inner Voice will open me to grace.<\/p>\n Wednesday, August 26<\/p>\n I was 73 years old yesterday.\u00a0 Did not confess to the others or sit at the birthday table.\u00a0 My best gift: that Inner Voice and Divine Process are one.\u00a0 And that my wounds are my joy because they were the source of the good energy I brought into the world.\u00a0 My life is not two lives: the wounded one struggling, the creative one bursting out when she can, but one life: the creative one transforms the wounding.<\/p>\n In family group I shared about how we can choose what to do with our wounds.\u00a0 We can hurt others, or we can work to process our wounds.\u00a0 The work is long and hard.\u00a0 We may never heal the wounds completely, but through the process of working with them, we can create much beauty, good energy, healing and meaning.<\/p>\n Added later (September 1) after some thought and a conversation. \u00a0I’m not going to give up working on healing, I am giving up the goal of healing completely (“all better now”). \u00a0I think I had the assumption that I couldn’t “have a life” without healing completely. \u00a0No. \u00a0I have a life right now, and I will continue to work on healing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Friday, August 21 I went in to Karen feeling lost.\u00a0 I said \u201cI don\u2019t know what to do with my life\u201d and saw it stretching grey before me.\u00a0 Karen was very fierce \u201cYour dancing, your art, your writing…\u201d\u00a0 She said … Continue reading