{"id":663,"date":"2010-08-07T12:30:02","date_gmt":"2010-08-07T12:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=663"},"modified":"2010-08-07T12:30:02","modified_gmt":"2010-08-07T12:30:02","slug":"guidance-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=663","title":{"rendered":"Guidance"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Written in January 2006)
\nDear Guides and Guardian Spirits, I\u2019m having a pretty hard time.\u00a0 I did the morning chores – wash dishes, haul wood, fill birdfeeders – with an ache in my heart, a lump in my throat, tears behind my eyes.\u00a0 Please help me.
\n Dear Jenny, you\u2019ve been in worse places than this and you have come out of them.\u00a0 This stony emptiness that you feel really belongs to your mother.\u00a0 This is what she felt when you were a baby and your father was away at war.\u00a0 She only knew how to \u201cput a good face on it,\u201d to be upbeat and cheerful when others were around.\u00a0 No one had ever taught her how to face and be with her own pain.\u00a0 So she repressed it, denied it, and medicated it with alcohol.\u00a0 When she was alone with you she allowed herself to collapse in tears and demand love and comfort from you \u2014 you were just a baby, you had no idea what was going on, you did your best, but no one had loved or comforted you.\u00a0 You were too small to say and do what your mother needed.\u00a0 Other times she was irritable and got angry or ignored you.\u00a0 She paid no attention to your needs but only to her own.\u00a0 So you learned that your own needs were not important, that you were bad to have needs, that your job was to make things OK for the people around you.\u00a0 This is a very poor foundation for being able to live creatively and authentically.\u00a0 You were also dealing with post-traumatic stress and a family karma of failure to mourn losses.\u00a0 Despite this severe wounding, you have managed to do a lot of good in your life.\u00a0 You have never intentionally harmed anyone but yourself.\u00a0 You have gone out of your way to support people you care about.\u00a0 You have done your best to live lightly on the earth.\u00a0 You have contributed money and energy to causes you believe in.\u00a0 Dear Jenny, this is not a wasted life!<\/em>
\nI\u2019m so confused, I don\u2019t know what to do.
\nIt\u2019s OK to do nothing.\u00a0 It\u2019s OK to read Brother Cadfael for 30 min and then go up and paint for 30 min.\u00a0 Courage!\u00a0 We love you.
\n<\/em>
\nWell, I\u2019m back to wanting to die.\u00a0 I was trying to read but my heart ached so badly and the words didn\u2019t mean anything.\u00a0 I think I\u2019ve lost my hope that the medication is going to make a difference.\u00a0 Why bother to go up and paint?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Written in January 2006) Dear Guides and Guardian Spirits, I\u2019m having a pretty hard time.\u00a0 I did the morning chores – wash dishes, haul wood, fill birdfeeders – with an ache in my heart, a lump in my throat, tears … 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":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guidance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663","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=663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}