Discombobulated : Monday update

What a word! what a feeling! Today it was a push to get to therapy, my body was all over the place, and I sat in the car in my garage in tears this morning wondering how I would make it there. My therapist is always so calm, so reassuring, I read some of my poems and cried but the funny thing was that last night I felt so much joy and it was good to laugh, I had a lovely outing with a dear friend and Jasper and then a walk, so that really lifted by spirits. Later in the evening I was watched two very funny shows the American version of State of the Union written by Nick Hornby and the first three episodes of the British comedy Staged which is about actors behaving badly. It felt so good to be laughing but as soon as my head hit the pillow I got spun around by some kind of force.

I was also reading about the solar plexus chakra in a book on unconditional love just before bedtime. In the chapter on unconditional self love, the case was shared of a woman who turned super critical to herself and then suffered a host of physical issues, some of them associated to her liver. After a liver replacement the liver she had received started to be rejected and she was on the list for a second replacement but it never came. Instead she started to connect to her inner child and heal the self rejection she carried from childhood, as well as a very mean and critica energy internalized, after this the liver she had received came good, it took a fair bit of time but it was the connecting to her inner child that really, really helped her body to heal.

I know for myself that digestion relates to the solar plexus chakra and self criticism is associated to issues with poor digestion. I struggle so much with my digestion at times and so often seem to lack the capacity to tune in deeply, it is hard for me to engage with buried needs that I had at times, it almost feels like growing up, since I was not allowed to need I no longer could admit that I did. Instead I learned to defend and push away and that was also a necessary response in my family who were not overtly loving or demonstrative. Over time I also lacked the capacity to ask for what I needed. When I got into AA I did start to reach out but often it was to those with avoidant issues due to addiction and trauma again which is why, I guess, some years into sobriety a friend encouraged me to get a good therapist. I had fallen foul of another woman in the rooms who was a bit of an emotional avoidant and in the end she rejected me for expressing emotions, much as I used to be rejected in my family for that. That said, at the time that happened I was living alone and was feeling quite ‘lost’ prior to my husband leaving in 2004, and I now see I was stuck in an emotional holding pattern that I am now more aware of and longing to break free of.

Slowly I am learning to reach out.. On Saturday we met two lovely owners with dogs at the park and had a good chat, we also connected with a local ukelele group. I seem to love music and I had that thought that this year might be a good time to seek out groups in which to become engaged. I approached a couple of the people as they were packing up the car to leave and they invited me to join the group.

I also rang my sister today, I was missing her and I know I will not hear from her if I do not try to reach out. I did get sucked into a difficult place after the call as I am realising how much I had to work in the family to try and be seen.

Feeling a bit tired now. My head was all in a spin earlier, have only settled down now after returning home following lunch. Probably did not need the cup of coffee I had before it, that seems to have made me feel a bit drained and I many have been missing my salad for lunch. I need to keep tuning into my body more before I ingest substances since yesterday a bit of stream of consciousness writing I did from my inner child related to me tuning or checjing out of my body, and when this happens my level of emotional literacy crashes into the sea.

Later I felt like I had more energy, I made a nice dinner and put on some music that I love, I am doing my best to foster joy, to keep reminding myself that this new birthday year coming up in 11 days can be a wonderful one.. I am also doing my very best to stay as focused in the present as I can, as in touch with my soul as I can, as grateful as I can be for the gifts that do currently surround me.