I watched these two urges competing in my body yesterday as the dentist prepared me for our treatment.. In dentistry we have to willingly submit to be hurt for a time in the hope it will make things better in the long run. My hurting started many years ago with four teeth removed to make way for braces and then the headdress I had to wear as well every night for about 1 year. It was a bit like a medieval instrument of torture.. So now when I see how my body reacts coming out of a dental treatment it is oerhaps understandable but no one else could have a clue.. Its very tough going..
I am not sure if I am eating and drinking the right things.. Last night was intense I got off to sleep only to wake around both 2 and 5 am with my body going into absolute meltdown.. I then somehow fell to sleep until 8.45 am which is unusual but my first thought was we just had the longest day here and I know my body responds to the sun beginning to rise, I have read up on it and it has to do with chemicals in our glands in response.. there is a huge tussle for me in this early morning awakening time and then to get up and moving while feeling my self pushed and pulled around like a marionette.
I got up okay but the minute I ate I was spun and spun intensely I made myself get out in the car and go to the park then sit for a while then do a short shady walk with Jasper around the block, that at least gives him time out and time to get his bowels moving which is important for his health.. But I had massive attack back at home.. I was doing a lot of singing and while walking, this was something Sonia Choquette recommended as good for the thyroid gland also its great to get out into our neighborhood that has so many interesting plants. That brings some more beauty into my day.. Today it was dancing tiger butterflies and the pink flowers of the oleander that drew my attention most as well as the slowly unfolding buds of the purple agapanthus flower that always reminds me of our coast house where they grow wild in profusion.
I’m preparing lunch and googled good foods to eat after dental surgery… they recommended smoothies and cheese.
Anyway my stomach is rumbling now.. I had a couple of sad moments before but most of the time I have been happy and grateful even after the treatment yesterday, grateful I made it through without a collapse of any kind and I am grateful to good friends too who share their own struggles with me. Listening to someone else for a while gets me off the pain in my mouth and its comforting to be there even if I also have to take care of my own life.. Any time someone shares with me and takes the risk to be vulnerable, I realize more and more how similar we are and how much we all go through especially women who are bullied by men.. There are lovely kind men out there who only want to care and cherish women but sadly they may be hard to find if we have trauma and become trauma bonded and some women can be hard as nails too, possibly had to become so in order to survive..
In the dentists chair yesterday I felt that desire to make a fist and come out fighting but then I had to surrender while trying my hardest to keep breathing through my nose.. In is book on breath James Nestor explains how poor our human breathing patterns have become and how detrimental to health breathing through the mouth is. I read a post on someone’s hyper-vigilance in the face of paternal threat yesterday.. The person is struggling with what that has left encoded into him as well as the very difficult subject of self forgiveness as well as letting go. When I think of how tough it can be to overcome this legacy I wonder why anyone would make comments or judge another over it.. and keeping the focus on our breath when triggered is not always easy.
Anyway life is full of so called ‘experts’ I guess for me I try to do my best and know by now I can never fully understand how it might be to live inside another person’s skin. The truth is not everyone is capable of empathy about things they do not understand and so it is when we get those unhelpful comments it is best to remember that that is just someone else’s opinion, we may choose to be open to it or not as we see fit. There is a reading in my Al Anon book Courage to Change that speaks of ‘taking’ offence.. even if something hurts and upsets us we have a choice what to do in the face of that and we have a right to say we find something hurtful and not be demonized for that, just as others have the right I guess, not to care at all about our suffering.
Emerging From The Dark Night 