{"id":5455,"date":"2017-03-25T18:09:46","date_gmt":"2017-03-25T22:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=5455"},"modified":"2017-03-25T18:09:46","modified_gmt":"2017-03-25T22:09:46","slug":"healing-from-the-bottom-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=5455","title":{"rendered":"Healing from the Bottom Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

I want to write about what\u2019s been happening lately.\u00a0 When I came back from the visit to Kendal<\/a>, I knew I could create a good life for myself there.\u00a0 I put it in that form without really thinking about it, but looking back I see that at that moment I took charge of my life.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t say \u201cIt\u2019s a good place.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be comfortable there.\u201d\u00a0 What I saw was that there was enough support, a strong enough container, so I could \u201chave a life\u201d \u2014 a real life, created by me to be what I want. \u00a0This is a big deal.\u00a0 For most of my life I didn\u2019t know I needed support, or I saw the need as a weakness.\u00a0 My parents shamed me for asking for help, and I learned in my family of origin that if I wanted something to happen, I had to do it all myself.\u00a0 So being able to say \u201cI can create a good life\u201d is tremendous.\u00a0 It means that I have accepted that it\u2019s OK to need support, and it\u2019s OK to find support for myself, and it\u2019s OK to use the support.<\/p>\n

Another thing that happened is that I started playing music that I haven\u2019t listened to for years.\u00a0 The CD was by a Scottish\u00a0group, Ossian<\/a>, called St. Kilda Wedding<\/a>.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t been able to listen to a variety of music for a long time.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been restricted, or restricted myself, or actually couldn\u2019t tolerate a lot of music, especially from the past, from happier times.\u00a0 Or maybe I should say times when I felt more solid and could be cheered up by music.\u00a0 As I\u2019ve had to restrict myself to \u201csafe\u201d reading, books that wouldn\u2019t trigger me, books that didn\u2019t require a lot of brain power, so I read the same books over and over.\u00a0 I can always enjoy meeting again characters I\u2019ve come to know.\u00a0 So in music I could only tolerate music we dance to, Gregorian Chant, and the Oratorium in Memory of the Armenian Genocide of 1915<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Another really important change is that I am meditating every day, and doing it in a completely different way.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been wanting to start meditating, but when it happened it was a surprise.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been coming to a place where I have no thoughts.\u00a0 Sometimes I experience it as scary and empty.\u00a0 But recently I thought \u201cI haven\u2019t anything to write or do, why don\u2019t I just meditate.\u201d\u00a0 So I set the timer for 20 minutes, and just sat there, on the couch, with my feet on the floor.\u00a0 I started counting my breaths, then began to just notice when the out breath turned into an in breath, and the other way around.\u00a0 Of course my mind got distracted, but I didn\u2019t get stressed about it, I just went back to the breath.\u00a0 When I was first learning to meditate, I was very harsh on myself.\u00a0 \u201cSit straighter.\u201d \u201cPay attention.\u201d\u00a0 I also had a problem with following the breath, because as soon as I did that I started controlling it.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t seem to witness my breath without interfering.\u00a0 Now it\u2019s completely different, not because I\u2019m actively trying to do it different, but because I\u2019m naturally doing it different.\u00a0 I\u2019m finding it easy to follow my breath.\u00a0 I notice when my mind goes off, and bring it back affectionately.\u00a0 I\u2019m so immersed in what I\u2019m doing, that I jump when the timer rings.\u00a0 I don\u2019t sit there wanting to look at the timer or wondering when it will ever ring.\u00a0 No more getting bored or impatient.\u00a0 Now I\u2019m surprised that a whole 20 minutes has gone by.<\/p>\n

I think these new openings are coming from some place deep inside, some place far out of consciousness where I have finally been able to integrate my\u00a0new learnings.\u00a0 I have been reading my journal from a year ago and am struck by how many new realizations I was having.\u00a0 For example, really<\/span> getting it that my depression is not my fault.\u00a0 But I was disappointed that this new understanding didn\u2019t change how I felt.\u00a0 Now I see that feelings\/emotions are not very important.\u00a0 I tend to think they are very important, that they give me information about how I am now.\u00a0 But the truth is that my emotions are too often triggered by some reminder of my painful past.\u00a0 What tells me the truth about how I am now<\/span>, is the felt sense in my body.\u00a0 The felt sense of \u201csturdiness\u201d that allowed me to pick a different CD and put it on.\u00a0 Though I\u2019m not aware of doing it consciously, I just take the action spontaneously, and then realize it\u2019s something I haven\u2019t been able to do for a long time.<\/p>\n

This is healing from the bottom up.\u00a0 It\u2019s a process that\u2019s completely out of my control.\u00a0 I can\u2019t make it happen, I have to allow it to happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cSturdy\u201d is a new word for me, at least applied to myself.\u00a0 My friend Elizabeth used it to say what she heard in my voice as I was telling her about these changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I want to write about what\u2019s been happening lately.\u00a0 When I came back from the visit to Kendal, I knew I could create a good life for myself there.\u00a0 I put it in that form without really thinking about it, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healing","category-present-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}