{"id":8455,"date":"2024-06-02T15:45:36","date_gmt":"2024-06-02T19:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=8455"},"modified":"2024-06-02T15:45:36","modified_gmt":"2024-06-02T19:45:36","slug":"one-wild-and-precious-life-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=8455","title":{"rendered":"One Wild and Precious Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

First posted in August 2010<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I was thinking about the line from Mary Oliver: \u201cWhat will you do with your one wild and precious life?\u201d and how it always makes me feel bad, like I have wasted mine.\u00a0 Well, have I wasted it?<\/p>\n

(Written in July 2006)
\nReading my journal for 1991.\u00a0 There was a lot going on: Journey into Courage<\/a>, I was seeing Doug for Process work, struggling with depression and terror.\u00a0 I\u2019m surprised at the intensity and passion with which I wrote.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t sound like the grey depressed life I\u2019ve been imagining.\u00a0 On the other hand, there\u2019s a lot of pain and struggle.\u00a0 There are also learnings that I think I\u2019ll be able to act on right away.\u00a0 I\u2019m working with the issue of trying to keep rigid control over myself and seeing that a looser, more open way would be healthier, if scary.\u00a0 My first sense on reading my enthusiastic writing about this new learning is discouragement \u2014 God! I keep learning the same damn things over and over.\u00a0 But I see now that intellectual learning is only the beginning.\u00a0 Learning how to let go of rigid control and allow the pieces to find their own way is a long process, it has to gradually sink in, penetrate and loosen and change layer after layer.\u00a0 In 1991 I had no idea how strong were the forces holding the rigid systems in place.<\/p>\n

Reading 1991 is fascinating and painful.\u00a0 Detailed descriptions of dreams, of process work with Doug, of the breathwork group.\u00a0 I\u2019m not reading every word \u2014 partly seeing how much effort I\u2019m putting into intellectual understanding, which doesn\u2019t change the important things at all.\u00a0 I\u2019m not yet on medication \u2014 not even considering it, I have no idea about the Post-traumatic Stress or the low thyroid \u2014 and I\u2019m fighting as hard as I can.\u00a0 I have a lot more respect for myself, for my strength and persistence.\u00a0 What did you do with your one wild and precious life?\u00a0 I fought like a demon against the forces of oppression.\u00a0 Not a wasted life at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First posted in August 2010: I was thinking about the line from Mary Oliver: \u201cWhat will you do with your one wild and precious life?\u201d and how it always makes me feel bad, like I have wasted mine.\u00a0 Well, have … 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":[8,9,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-depression","category-journal","category-trauma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8455","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=8455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}