Learning to sit with pain : today’s reflections

Being unheld as a child I did not learn skills to sit or stay with myself using my feelings to work things in my life through to resolution.. its a shock to me to see with nearly 28 years of unbroken sobriety I am still not totally free in using unhealthy ways to cope, at times, but I am making steps.. and I can identify feelings to a degree and sit with them.

After finally taking that call from my sister on Monday I just sat in the shopping center and cried. Most of the conversation was about her hoping she could come out of the hospital, not go back into aged care and get clothes and food and find ways to exercise and connect to others, all really good things but they made me realize how isolated I still am at times and how hard I find it to own that I struggle on many days and do not always feel strong..

That said when I take the positive action not to indulge in an unhealthy coping mechanism things go better and I notice I feel happier.. Like yesterday I broke habit of that mid morning coffee to feel better and I felt my feelings, I reached out to someone I felt I owed an amends and then took myself out for a nice lunch.. My foot is still sore coming out of the accident I had a week ago but the tissue salts seem to be working.. I have also found a really good morning Chi Gong practice that I will share below to help me. Love the names of some of the moves that work to raise our energy and chi in positive ways.

Hearing from my sister is a big trigger as we both suffered emotional neglect.. She chose psychiatric solutions which I do not see as enough, but I always needed to respect her pathway and this was clear last year when the third round of shock treatment had her a nervous wreck, unable to articulate or even tell me it was going on, when she finally revealed it and I wanted to scream down the fucking psychiatric establishment I did not do it, I prayed and the angels told me to step back, hold my tongue and let her make her own destructive choices.. I had to face then in September when her son lambasted me again for blogging about this and trying to call his attention to the issue via email that I must not pursue any more contact.. And I have not I have waited for her to call me and I am sad to say I cannot visit her as I am not vaccinated due to my own health issues and do not wish to be.

There were very complex emotions yesterday possibly why I felt so down and expressed that here.. I did feel very helpless again as I do not want to get drawn back in where there is no real recognition or recovery of feeling happening.. For the most part I choose not to numb what I feel but I must truthfully say fear does sometimes run my choices.. The antidote to fear is faith and trust in my ability to contain myself finally. I do not always manage it but often I do and I need to keep reminding myself less of where i failed and more of where and when I do and have succeeded in exceptionally painful and trying family circumstances. After all its coming up soon to the anniversary of my first sister’s death so this is never an easy time of year for me heading into Easter.