Spiritual Awakening - Being empty

Last weeks post that didn't get published...

I woke up late today and took my coffee out to the porch.   I heard a loud screeching noise from a flock of birds.  It is very wooded in the back and I noticed a large owl sitting on a branch with dozens of birds flapping around him.  He didn't look like he was that interested and was ignoring them. I wondered what it would be like to get that kind of reception where ever you went. 

We are different from the animals in that we have psychological feelings and the animals don't. I am guessing the doesn't sit around and thinking "why don't these birds like me?"  Maybe asking their mate "what can I do to be more liked?"  She might reply "stop eating there children for a start." 

I think we are the only ones plagued by self awareness and are worried about what other people think of us. We really mostly care about our inner circle but in general we expect everyone to like us. My mother taught me early on that not everyone would like me.  Mostly because we were persecuted Pentecostals.  It was expected that children of God would be outsiders in this world and not understood by the world.

I was comfortable with being on the outside for many reasons. I did help that I could lean on the religious angle to back me up.  It definitely didn't help the way I dressed and the fact that I couldn't participate in the dance session we had every Friday. 

It is funny now that I don't really fit in with the God's chosen group either. I never could buy the whole story that we had the answers and everyone out there was going to burn. I remember asking my daddy "what if we are wrong and those other churches are right?"

 It didn't make sense to me that we would be the lucky ones and all the other nice people were doomed. He was not happy with my many questions and it was the beginning of me having to choose between us and them.

I have lived my life on the fence which is a very insecure place. I haven't been able to believe without question anything really. I can always see the merits of both ideas if you are in the chosen group what better way to feel safe and secure.  It doesn't explain when bad things happen to good people. The story of Job it is all just a test. The holes in all the different  beliefs are the same.

I do believe we all have a spirit and some carry negative energy with them. Their brain has locked in on some event and they are stuck. Eckhart Tole said that he was so stress and agitated that is mind just couldn't take it anymore he had a spiritual awakening.  This is a story many people tell about there spiritual awakening. 

I have experience this myself I had a steady obsessive mind manically looking for the answer to my unhappiness and the negative self talk just kept searching for the answer and then there was nothing. One day I just woke up empty and calm and I have been that way ever since.

I read about this medically that when the brain reaches a point it can't function it basically snaps to protect it'self. I couldn't function any longer where I was and I needed a correction. It felt like nothing I had experienced before. Someone said to me pointing to some books I bought "the person that bought those books is gone aren't they?"  "Yes" was my answer I have no doubt that who I was before "the awakening" has been replaced.

First replaced by nothing and then slowly moved back to the person I was as a child. Without the imprints of sorrow and loss that being human lays upon you. It is an awkward place to be because you can see easily where others are because you have been there but you know you can't really help them. I want to shout "it isn't real" the pain you feel you are causing yourself with the words in your mind. 

I feel like the owl in the tree today just doing my own thing while birds are flying around me screeching. I don't even hear the screeching anymore. I care deeply that others suffer and offer words of encouragement but when your mind is in chaos - you can't hear me - I can't save you.

I do believe those that become addicted probably have a mind like mine.  One that can only be tamed with some kind of substance. It only works temporarily and then you want more. The answer I think is recognizing it is both physical and emotional and dealing with both sides of that is the only answer.  

It feels so weird - Seeing for the first time

I never really realized that my life has really been my work until now.  Since we haven't been very busy I have had a lot of time to see what it would be like not to work.  I will say not to work in a driven fashion even during the recession when there wasn't any work I still spent all my free time trying to get work living at the office scheming on how to bring in more business.

This is different because it isn't a crisis unless I make it one.  I am getting an opportunity to work to live instead of live to work.  What it would be like to not work 50-60 hours a weeks.  My mind at first was very unhappy very restless looking for a crisis of any kind to get it's teeth in.  Perusing the past for anything that would make me feel insecure or critical about myself and decisions that got me where I am today.  The kind of loop that I can get into easily when I need to fill time and I am restless.

I have been reading Dr. Amen book on healing ADD and the seven types.  I could identify with two one with the loop of bad thoughts the other the "I am bored" mantra. He gives examples and then combinations of natural supplements or pharmaceuticals that he has used with success with his patients. 

I have started taking a couple of different things.  Not really long enough for them to make a difference but I do think that the Keto diet has already geared me toward better nutrition and better mental function. His book does address the alcoholic brain and adult children of alcoholics.

This is beyond belief to me that my emotional patterns are caused by the composition of my brain and that there is something other than talk therapy that can help.  Sure meds have been an option for a long time but combinations of diet exercise and amino acids as an option is something different.  He said that they doctors are lumping all ADD together and prescribing the same thing for everyone.  Which actually make some people worse given the part of the brain affected.

I have avoided medication because the people I know that have been on it don't seem any better and they usually go through a bunch of different ones.  I like the idea of using the brain scan to determine what part of the brain has been shows up a problem.  We all can't get brain scans but we can see ourselves in the different patients he describes.

It is nice not being a slave to my emotions and really feeling so clear and less fearful.  The better I eat the better I feel  This might seem logical but when your mind is acting out you don't really make good choices about food or anything else really.  For me it seems everything is blown out of proportion and I am just surviving.

I am not sure this will count as related to recovery but it is where I am now.  I feel like I am seeing for the first time not just surviving. It feels so weird.

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.