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.

Emotional Hangover - Healing in pajamas

I had a nice Thanksgiving but I wasn't totally able to avoid feeling down.  It didn't really hit me until the day after and then Saturday.  I would like to think all feelings are cerebral and be overcome with thought control.  These feelings are ego driven and relate to some story we have about ourselves and for the most part I think it is true.

I can't  buy this theory completely because it is not my own experience.  It is of course in our minds but I believe we must have levels memories as well as levels of healing those memories.  We can address them as they come to the surface.  Sometimes we know what triggers the memory of  hurt and sometimes we are taken by surprise.  For me it is Thanksgiving.

I say to myself that I have a good life and that I am a better more healthy person spiritually and emotionally but I was still hurt by what happen to me. It changed my life whether I admit it or not. Those feelings of self doubt surface and I am down for the count.  Saturday I slept until 11 and never got out of pajamas.

I was experiencing an emotional hangover and decided I needed to write in my journal.  I wrote about how I repelled the people I loved  in my life and that is why they left me. When I write things like that I feel worse because I feel I haven't made much progress. How can this be when I remembered feeling so good last year.

I decided to see what I wrote last year.  There is was in black and white slept until 11 and still in my pajamas along with some other bleak stuff.

Reading the words from last year snapped my out of it almost immediately.  I realized this is just a weekend of mourning for me. I shouldn't feel like it is a set back it is just me taking a moment to grieve some pretty significant losses in my life. To honor two major relationships that ended abruptly at Thanksgiving.

It is the thinking I shouldn't still feel this way that really bothers me.  If I could just let those feelings wash over me they would pass just like they did this year.  By Sunday I was painting the kitchen and feeling pretty good.  Can I just accept myself where I am at any given time especially at Thanksgiving? Maybe next year will be different. I don't think so.

Insecure - Getting over myself

I found myself alone tonight. I thought I was going to church with a friend but he said he would prefer that we just have dinner at my house. He then left me a message saying he was at the church.

This stuff happens with us a lot but it felt particularly hurtful on Christmas eve. My mind went right to this is where you are in your life. You are depending on someone that isn't capable of considering your feelings. It isn't his fault we who have been hurt a lot don't really understand how what we do or don't do can hurt other people.

I believe today that you should do what you want no matter what it keeps you from having resentments later. I do think you should consider how your decisions affect other people but in the end if you say yes to get along that ultimately there will be resentments.

What is a good balance? I have been at both extremes thinking so much about what someone else needs that I have lost track of my own needs. I did this because I wanted to see myself as a good person. I also thought that if one day I need the same support I would get it. That didn't happen. Today I realize that when I say yes it has to be without strings.

When I say no I try to communicate my decision in a thoughtful way. What I wish my friend had done is say "hey I changed my mind and decided I needed to get out tonight and decided to go by myself". It would have been honest and I wouldn't have felt rejected.

I am not without fault I have hurt a lot of people in my life. It wasn't intentional it was while I was consumed with my own pain. I only felt my own pain and didn't understand that other people have pain too or that I was inflicting the same kind of pain I was struggling to get over myself.

I can't say that I am all emotionally open now. I don't think I will ever be an emotional spicket it is too late for that now but because I am no longer consumed by my own pain I can be kinder to others.

I got over feeling left out tonight because I know I was feeling vulnerable because I am alone and it is a holiday where normal people have something to do or someone to be with. This of course is a story I tell myself it supports my old life story that I am not lovable.

I got over it because it is just one night and I don't have to do what I have always done and mentally feed this idea of not being lovable.

Tomorrow I will be with my friends having Christmas dinner and tonights insecurities with be long forgotten unless I want to revisit those thoughts tomorrow. It is my choice.

Merry Christmas.