Written in writing group on April 24.<\/p>\n
I remember how it used to upset me when people talked about \u201cbeing grateful for the gift of life.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>I felt like the \u201cgift\u201d came to me smashed, it wasn\u2019t a gift at all.\u00a0 <\/span>And my long struggle to \u201cprove I deserve to live<\/a>\u201d also suggests that I didn\u2019t feel it was a gift but something I had to earn.<\/p>\n That\u2019s all changed.\u00a0 <\/span>It was just a couple of weeks ago when Alice said<\/a> she liked the honesty with which I wrote about myself<\/a> in the Residents\u2019 Biography book.\u00a0 <\/span>I talked about my alcoholic parents and having been traumatized as a baby.\u00a0 <\/span>I remember someone in charge asking me if I wanted to take anything out, or if I was really comfortable with everything.\u00a0 <\/span>I said I was fine with how it was.\u00a0 <\/span>But nobody else wrote about anything negative.<\/p>\n The second thing was being introduced to the work of Nic Askew<\/a> who filmed people in black and white and somehow got their real selves to appear.\u00a0 <\/span>Then there was something I was typing up from a month ago where I said something about \u201ctrying to be who I really am\u201d and it was so clear that \u201ctrying\u201d was not the way to get there.\u00a0 <\/span>So I just relaxed, and it was the most amazing thing.\u00a0 <\/span>I was able to experience myself as the person I really am and not Mother\u2019s shadow that she projected on to me.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s been clear for a long time that the person other people see is not<\/span> who I experience myself to be.\u00a0 <\/span>But that\u2019s all changed.<\/p>\n Another piece was having the music to a dance pop into my head.\u00a0 <\/span>That was actually weeks before these other things happened.\u00a0 <\/span>The music was St. Francis’ Canticle of the Creatures<\/a>, sung by Angelo Branduardi.\u00a0 <\/span>By \u201ccreatures\u201d is meant all created things: Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Water, Fire, plants and animals.\u00a0 <\/span>The dance to it is simple and joyful and I started doing it, and it made me so happy.\u00a0 <\/span>So I\u2019ve been so happy for almost two weeks now, and looking back my life looks like a great adventure not a dismal waste.<\/p>\n I think of the things I\u2019ve done, and I feel good about them.\u00a0 <\/span>I wrote a book<\/a> expressing the two sides of the brain on left-hand pages and right-hand pages.\u00a0 <\/span>The right hand pages are linear and logical with footnotes and bibliography which is the left side of the brain, but our experience is that it\u2019s the right side of the body.\u00a0 <\/span>The left-hand pages are much more creative.\u00a0 <\/span>I also created a slide show<\/a> which involved pictures I had taken of megalithic monuments and sacred sites in the Celtic countries.\u00a0 <\/span>It was a lot of work because I had two slide projectors and a fade-dissolve unit to crossfade the slides, music, and a script.\u00a0 <\/span>I had a career plan of taking the show on the road and selling books at each showing.\u00a0 <\/span>But I never got there.\u00a0 <\/span>Severe depression rooted in early trauma sabotaged my ability to carry it out.<\/p>\n Then I was part of Journey Into Courage<\/a>.<\/p>\n And<\/span> I built Neskaya<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n Note: going back to look for the day Alice talked to me, I discovered that the previous post was “Choose to be Happy<\/a>” in which I show how that attitude is not helpful. \u00a0Made me laugh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Written in writing group on April 24. I remember how it used to upset me when people talked about \u201cbeing grateful for the gift of life.\u201d\u00a0 I felt like the \u201cgift\u201d came to me smashed, it wasn\u2019t a gift at … Continue reading