Hello, World! It’s been awhile. I’ve missed you much and yet the world continues to spin without me in it. In a metaphorical sense, that is.
I’ve been here and I’ve not been here. About a year ago, I retreated far into myself to figure out what was going on in here. And I did it consciously and with purpose: to retrieve something I felt was lost.
I couldn’t even tell you how I lost it… maybe motherhood? maybe the angst and pain of the characteristic quarter-life crisis? Did I ever really even have it? Maybe I lost it in small pieces, time after time. Maybe it was being chipped away, hidden and undealt with, stuffed into a small can and thrown deep into my ocean to be retrieved by myself when my mind decided I was finally ready and strong enough to dig it out and find out what’s inside.
It’s a really weird feeling, to be you your whole life and yet being so unaware of deeply-held patterns, of biases you’ve never been able to look at or really inspect, parts of your mind that would just turn off if you tried to venture there, memories that you’ve dismissed but that really shaped a large part of the personality you show to the world, negative cognitive beliefs you never knew existed of which you refer to almost everyday in all situations. It’s a really weird feeling to be receptive and open to that and just seeing all those things pop open for you to examine, discuss, and feel.
It’s helped to discuss this with a trained professional. Going into it a year ago, the self-retreat, I didn’t even think it’d lead me to a therapist. But as it did last time I saw my therapist, I went through the maze in my mind, went around in circles, inspected every route, and kept only coming back to the same dead-ends. I needed some outside perspective, someone I could trust, someone who could offer insight and the right words and questions to help navigate me out of those dead-ends and into new and scary spaces without feeling alone. It helps to have a small light or guide to help you forward. Even still, I knew it would still be me who would need to take the actual steps. It helps to have encouragement, to have someone make you feel you can be extremely vulnerable without judgement no matter how many or what emotions come out of me. It helps to have someone hold your hand, knowing they’ve held someone else’s hand through all this and more, to help you ask the right questions so you can take turns towards something better, something outside your old life, something more liberating and more promising that you’ve never knew existed outside of the maze you currently operate in. It helps to know someone who explores the mind, who can bring you back and anchor you, who understands your intense preoccupation of not knowing the future, dismissing the gravity of your past, and the difficulty of living in the present and the cultural norms that are forced upon you.
It was pretty complicated. And I’m still untangled it.
But I went in with a few very specific requests:
(1) I felt stuck in a few very characteristic situations. I’ve tried everything to get around the walls I come up against. I try digging under, I try going over, I try breaking through, going around, everything, and I just can’t figure it out. Can you help me figure out what it is I’m not seeing? I wanted to move forward but felt stuck in the mud.
(2) Certain situations trigger a lot of emotion for me and I think I knew why, but I couldn’t figure out how to get over it. Could she help me?
(3) There are things in my past I didn’t realize I’ve never, ever talked about or processed with myself. Can you help walk me through that?
(4) I want to feel and be more confident, empowered, capable. I feel that person is inside of me trying to get out, but I can’t seem to get the rope to pull her out. She’s more assertive, acts on her convictions, is passionate and open and full of feeling and understanding, but I feel afraid of hurting other people’s feelings if I were to let her exist in her full-fledged form. Can you help me bring her up and help me deal with the conflicts I have with bringing her to fruition.
So I outlined these situations for her. I told her what feelings come up. I listed out what I think the connections are with memories from my past. She recommended psychotherapy and EMDR. So I said, “Let’s do it. If I have to go through anxiety and depression to get there, I’ll do it. As long as it means I’ll get there.”
So we started in June. And I cried a lot. I was angry a lot. I was conflicted a lot. I was weird with my friends and family, mostly staying away from anyone who could moderately hurt me. Not intentionally, but circumstantially. Sunglasses helped a lot, especially feeling that exposed and vulnerable all the time. I started feeling better about putting up more boundaries with less guilt. I started acknowledging I’m a person who naturally needs more space and that there’s nothing wrong with that. I started recognizing ways I distant myself from people on purpose and how I distance my feelings from myself as a means of protection. I started experiencing what its like to take off that armor in situations that felt the most likely to be safe, with people who have watched me, held me, and proven their love for and to me for years. I started seeing how all this affected my parenting and my relationship with my daughters. I started seeing how it affected my relationship with the world and the way I really saw it.
There are other things that are really aiding in this rapid rescripting of my life. I’m still following “The Artist’s Way” which gives a creative element to my “spiritual recovery”, as they refer to it. I believe this is a large part of my personality and absolutely necessary in getting me where I want to go. Journaling and spending dedicated time to celebrating my creative joys (the 2 ongoing requirements constant in this book) has really helped soothe the irritations present in my soul.
I get a lot of feedback from the world, taking in advice and words I need to hear from podcasts, books, stories, talks, music, motivational speeches. In fact, this was my sole way of surviving in a time where I felt absolutely unable to be vulnerable with anyone but still needed guidance and words of wisdom.
…But I also put a large boundary up with the world. I fell out of my social networks, both real-life and digital. I did a media shut-down, opting for self-informed over world-informed, until I could get my bearings straight. I limited my access to binge-worthy shows and even put myself into reading deprivation, an attempt in to strip away and all possible distractions I was putting between myself and the truth. I stopped night snacking and doing art and journaling instead. I started biting my nails again from the nervousness of confronting my emotions and repressed thoughts. I had no information overload to hide in anymore, no fog to help hide my fears, worries, and anxieties that shook me at my core.
I started recently adding an element called, “Miracle Morning”. I keep tweaking this process but essentially it involves me getting up early to spend the first part of my day solely for myself. Rapid self-care, no guilt.
Miracle morning in particular has a specific structure. It looks like this:
1. Silence or Meditation
2. Exercise
3. Reading (Personal Development)
4. Writing
5. Affirmations
6. Visualizations
The recommendation is 10 minutes each but you can tweak as you see fit, or at least start with 3 and work your way into adding the others eventually. When I do all 6, I really do feel a different level of self going into my day. #1 I’ve been working on for quite a while and level of mindfulness developing still surprises me. #4 has really helped me deal with a lot of emotions coming up and just having a space to release them and let them go. #2 is just so beneficial in so many ways– stress outlet, physical health, etc. Those 3 I’ve already done on some level, but having 6 to hit seems to make it more well-rounded. It’s just having the discipline and increased sense of self-worth to put that time aside for myself before giving my time and energy to everyone else outside of me for the rest of my day.
So there’s that and the range of emotions, intense and raw emotions, that come along with that. I think delving into that and swimming about trying to find a sense of self-security, not based off or dependent on anyone else, brings about a large sense of self-consciousness I’ve just never felt before. So I think I’m just trying to accept that that will happen and acknowledging it as a transition, a temporary one, I’ll need to live through and let others observe in me, until I get into my power place.
It’s been brutal, but wow… enlightening, liberating, scary, uplifting, indescribable. It makes me appreciate life and what can come from it, struggles and all, right before I dip my head back down into the depth of its sea again.
So after a long hiatus, that’s how I’ve been doing… in a nutshell as best as I can describe it. I’ve attempted many times in this blog to describe it but to not avail, nothing that has satisfied my requirements for clarity and understanding and appropriate level of vulnerability. But there it is.
So… How are you?
momanddogs 