Odd - Slump - Better than normal

I was in a slump for about a week.  I did something that I haven't done in more than five years and it may have triggered the emotions.  I got a massage.  I know it sounds decadent but in reality it is really good for your body and your mind especially if you don't have regular physical touch by another person or even a furry pet.

Apparently is raises your own feel good oxytocin hormone. The added benefit is that most pain we feel in our joints is really in our muscles surrounding our joints.  It can be intense the first time plus the next day you feel strange mostly from getting your muscles put back where they belong.  You also release toxins built up in the muscle.  If you drink a lot water afterward and for a few days you can avoid these feelings. This is therapeutic massage not the kind of massage you get on vacation.

How does this relate to being in a slump?  First I got the woman's name from my first and only
sponsor in the program.  When I started going to meetings again a few years ago she texted me this woman's name.  I eventually stopped going to that meeting because I wasn't feeling better and I think I secretly wanted to reconnect with her.  We didn't reconnect and she hardly said hello to me.

I don't think it was personal she is just busy doing a million things and I wasn't on her radar.  I have to admit since I went through the darkness and back into the light I can't be the person I was before.  I don't feel like I really belong anymore.  I had an awakening and there is no going back. 

I have been listening to Eckhart Tolle recently and I feel my own beliefs align with his teachings.  The peace I feel until my ego decides it is unhappy with how things are and that I am to blame for it.
Mostly I feel alone and happy but sometimes the voice in my head says "look what you have done - you have no one".  On good days I know that isn't true on the bad days I list all the people that are not in my life anymore.  Worse I know some of them I could call and we could see each other but the person they knew doesn't live here anymore.

I am odd and I know I am odd but I love and accept myself the way I haven't before.  I wish I could find other people like me but I am not sure where to go.  Today I am content to work in my yard and finish re-upholstering my grandmothers chair. 

One tip the massage therapist gave was that you should periodically change side of the bed.  She said couple don't do this enough and end up with serious mis - alignments in the their hips and backs.  I never thought of that before. 

Mama's head - Making changes

I have always had a love hate relationship with the past and often wonder is the constant reminiscing really helping or hurting me.

When I started my journey first with counseling and then with Al-Anon I constantly spewed my story out to anyone that would listen.  I had kept it in for so long I just really wanted to be heard.  I also wanted to hear myself.  The steps and slogans  simplistic as they are helped me to first hear the thoughts in my head and then decide to change them from negative to positive.

The program slowed me down enough to take an inventory of my own beliefs and where those beliefs came from and whether they applied to me now. In my mind this was a total miracle that I could choose who I wanted to be and that I wasn't just saddled with this broken idea of myself.  Bad genes.

I could see that I was only a victim in my mind.  Sure other people gave me sympathy and love but that also kept me in my story.  I knew at the time that was what I needed and it felt really good to have people acknowledge my pain.  The truth was that I really just wanted the people that hurt me to acknowledge that my feelings even existed and to say they were sorry.

This deep want has stayed with me forever.  It comes from the child in me that is still hurt and is still saying "what about me? don't I matter?"  I didn't miss out on this when I was a child it was just that the sickness and death of my mother ended me being the center of the universe rather abruptly.  Because I became my own parent I didn't know that this would happen to me eventually even if my mother had lived.  I wanted to be seen again and have the loved the way my mother loved me.

I have been writing about my childhood and put together a timeline of the what was happening.  All the really great memories - big Easter egg hunt - giant birthday party with 50 kids - MS - Carnival all happened while my mother was sick the MS carnival five months before she died. My mother trying to show me her love and fulfill all my wishes.

Because my Daddy thought if we all had faith and only said positive things God would heal her. She couldn't say "hey you know I might not get better so lets just spend as much time together as possible."  My daddy was losing the love of his life and his mind could not accept it so we couldn't acknowledge what was right in front of us.

I understand that now maybe more than ever.  While writing about her I am becoming more of an adult about my childhood.  I didn't know the dates of those events were the last year she was alive. She was really sick and weighed less than 90 pounds at her death. How desperate she must have been to give us what she thought we wanted.

I had a dream this weekend that I had just her head.  Not like a gross horror movie but life in the Wizard of Oz when Dorthy was looking at the glass ball.  The head was smiling and talking and I took her to a party with me and everyone freaked out because she didn't have a body. When I woke up I thought "this is my own head" she gave it to me and I can take it wherever I want.

I have always felt like an outsider.  Early in Al-Anon I felt like I belonged until I started to feel like talking about our pain and suffering was really keeping us in our story and stuck.  The story was a habit that can define us.  There has to be a point when we just want joy and we have to put away the idea that without our story we are nothing.

I am not dismissing my story and I am planning on writing a book about it but it doesn't have to define me now.  I want to feel free to pursue joy everyday even if being totally open to a new life feels really uncomfortable. My mind is really freaked out and is constantly looking for a familiar distraction. Just like writing here.

I heard a scientific evaluation of this process. This is my version - You have habits and routines that you create and rely on for some period of time.  Your brain imprints these routines physically and then when you try to make a change it totally freaks and makes you feel unsettled.  We don't like it and are more likely to go back to auto pilot and the thing that we know because it calms us.

I saw this happening today. I have been wanting to visit a church nearby today.  The service didn't start until 11 but something in me did not want to do this and I ended up watching TV church like I have been doing lately. Now here I am writing about doing something new instead of doing something new.

I have had a few breakthroughs this holiday season.  I have been uncomfortable a lot but I didn't run towards anything instead I just sat with it until I had an awakening.  The thing with my mother is a big awakening for me to see that she wanted to grant me any wish I wanted since she knew she would not be there for me. I can appreciate that now.

The moral of the story is that we have the power to change our minds.  We can do this both through reasoning things out and by taking care of ourselves physically. These months without carbs and extra sleep have been astounding to me.  The clarity I have has been really surprising and motivating to me.   Today I am looking for joy.

Baking Bread - Sacrifice

I am baking bread this morning and contemplating what this day means to the the Christian world.  I do describe myself as a Christian even though I don't meet the standards of my childhood upbringing. Jesus and I have come to an understanding I love and respect him and he forgives me for blaming him for all the bad things my family did to me in his name.

The lack of love I received made me want to reject anything that they professed to love and Jesus and the Church was at the top of the list. I once said if my Dad was going to heaven then I didn't want to go. Fortunately all my bitterness has washed away with time and grace I have been able to see that he was just a man ill equipped to deal with the death of his wife and the emotions of two girls without a mother.  He did what seemed like the quickest way to happiness remarried another christian women. This worked out for him but not so much for the two girls.

I get it now and I am no longer looking for someone to take responsibility for leaving me in the lurch. It happens all the time we all put ourselves before the greater good of everyone involved. We can't help it life is short and we just want to find some happiness somewhere even if it means hurting someone else. The hurt is never intentional it is just a bi-product of our search for happiness.

Those that sacrifice everything in this case Jesus making the ultimate sacrifice thinking of only the greater good of the human race is saying it all.  Even if you don't buy the whole story it is a pretty spectacular idea. He did have doubts and he did experience loneliness even though he knew he would come back he also knew that to come back he would have to suffer and die alone.

In my own life I have had many spiritual deaths followed by great periods of growth. I felt rejected by the people who claimed they loved me. In my darkest hours I didn't want to go on and felt that being here waste of time. It was in those hours that I surrendered to my own spiritual death and ask for help from the unseen. Within moments I felt better and today I see clearly just how lost I was and how far I have come and I am grateful.

The story of Christ's death and resurrection is the story of human existence. He began speaking the truth and had great multitudes of people following him but in the end he had to face the worst on his own. Even though surrounded by people no one could take his place. It was a journey of one.

Ironically I am making bread for Easter dinner at a friends house. She requested it last night so I got up this morning and started baking. Bread does represent the body of Christ in the Christian world I thought how appropriate for the day. I feel peaceful today not wanting for anything.