New Year’s Day hike, Southford Falls, Connecticut
Alright let’s see what this new year makes of me.
I’ve set some intentions, some I’ll keep and some undoubtedly I will bend simply for the fact that I am lofty with my goals and ideas, and my human self cannot always keep them.
I do however have faith that this year I will be able to use and access my knowing a little better than the year before. What more can anyone ask of themselves than that.
My main focus right now is trying to keep a clear mind and be able to regulate my emotions more from within rather than the coping mechanisms I have used most of my life. This is not easy. Particularly as someone who has lived most of their life using one of the four f coping mechanisms (see the work of Pete Walker on C-ptsd).
I like most, had convinced myself that my life was my own, and that my decisions were solid etc, as it turns out it’s not so easy to be slapped in the face with radical awareness of lifelong patterns. This threatens to drown one in shame and self-loathing. The information almost too much to bear.
Try to trust yourself when you keep having to re-start because, because you have a particular path, a destiny. I always knew mine wasn’t easy, but this time period really takes the cake. Just wow.
From surviving to thriving indeed.
This chapter in my life includes so many changes I feel like I am on the gravitron ride at the county fair. My head is spinning, and when you’re in that kind of state, doing anything to still it for a moment takes precedence over rational and careful thinking.
Am I in charge of these changes, or are they in charge of me? I have always felt overly responsible and therefore in my quest to claim my god given right for a childhood where I wasn’t, I slip into bouts of under responsibility that are uncharacteristic of my nature and my age.
I’d like to think of it as diving hundreds of feet to a shipwreck and the only way I was ever going to recover my true essence and the gifts I’m meant to enjoy and share is this journey. It could also just be bad behavior and this can be seen as a justification I guess you would have to be able to watch my whole story on a screen (maybe someday), or magically know what’s inside my heart.
I don’t think many would be willing to give up all their comforts and safety time and time again, a pursuit that always ends up feeling a fault, a shortcoming, selfish, and many other things. I’m trying to reach a place where I don’t take more pride than is necessary to fuel myself, or more shame than is an average amount that makes one look at themselves and be able to follow through with authentic change.
Everything is on a spectrum after all. Believing a story can provide temporary comfort, but it doesn’t create an interesting life, and change is too complex for that.
I had all but given up this past year with the amount of pain I have been in, spiritually, personally, all of it….. and so caring for myself well, while improving in certain ways, had become worse in others.
So this year I am on a mission to feed my body and my mind only healthy uplifting things, and to tackle any habits that undermine my success and authenticity.
I am reading Martha Beck’s allegorical novel Diana Herself. I am at the half way point and it just made me extremely emotional. Without spoiling it I will say that she is a girl from a difficult background (we have that in common) and as a result has these voices that follow her telling her how unloveable she is and how she can’t have what she wants etc. her spirit guide in animal form in the book suggests she use a method of turning around any negative narrative she has about herself. This is based on the work of Byron Katie I suspect. As she is one of Martha’s mentors. So for example she says no one wanted me they all left me etc, and upon further examination she left them because she was too precious and good to be around that. She had the story backwards all along.
It’s stories like these that resonate that someone else gets it, that brings magic to life. Something I hope to do for others some day.
The key to unlocking this is recovering a relationship with myself that is filled with wonder and nurturing and as a result connect this way with my children, who are teenagers, so that would fall under the category of lofty goals. Watch me 😉 I will do, and hopefully you’ll appreciate and learn from my many stumbles. I need to add some humor to this process. It’s been serious and dark a long time. That’s what I knew after all.
So many of my goals are feed my mind with words if people I admire and things I want to learn about and stay with that rather than becoming distracted, chaotically just anywhere.
To DECIDE how to spend my energy, always knowing it’s value.
Read, write, walk, breathe, feel, sense, try new things, see new places, and not keep my world small with anxiety.
I’ve spent some time reflecting on how much anxiety I have overcome. Literally debilitating intrusive thoughts, panic attacks, healthy anxiety, a total preoccupation with fear of death, and I truly believed for a long time I would die at any moment. It threatened to shrink my world and I didn’t realize how much I huddled inside in my comfort, but also how much I badly desired to adventure free from fear.
This year I have burned off the most of my health anxiety. I no longer anxiously check my heart rate, or obsess over my disease. I simply will get care if a problem worsens or persists, but generally from this relaxed space they don’t. I’m still reminded sometimes of my limits, but I’m also constantly pushing past them.
This past years victories include piano lessons, even though my hands shake, and I get hard on myself when I don’t practice, etc. battling lots of shame there. The courage to be seen.
As well as going to a trainer regularly, more exercise than I ever have. I am still threatened with stops and starts but the time lapse between shrinks and getting back up is much easier now. I can no longer believe a story that enables me to defend my weakness.
I am realizing that my particular brand of freeze has resulted in my mind making so many things more difficult than they actually are. It’s liberating!
FREEDOM!!!!!!!
I intend to bring my readers along with me as I explore myself in relation to the world this year. I am often lonely, and rather than scramble for a source outside myself I shall invest in a relationship with her and chronicle my adventures. This is my intention.
💜 always
Grateful today for…. having brunch with twin B (Victoria), that twin A (Rian) enjoyed breakfast out with her sweetie and that it’s a healthy relationship, that my son Tyler is doing him and living his life. For my friend Chip who stops by and shares delicious food he has made and always has a hug for me. That Sophie turned 5 months today and is finally getting a little better with behavior :p. For my bath time, beautiful home, and books.