I had a pretty synchronistic thing happen this
morning. I was writing my morning pages, and I was trying to remember what
Brene Brown had said in her The Gifts of Imperfection book about “digging deep,” that instead of hitting
the “dig deep” button and scraping the reserves of our well when we are depleted and simply can’t go any further, her
research showed her that people who live in a “wholehearted way,” as she puts
it, do something different. They DIG by getting “Deliberate, Inspired, and
Going.”
She gives an example, that she was burnt out on work for the
day, and usually would have gone to Facebook or the internet to “recharge,” but
that’s not really restorative, is it? So, she deliberated, she thought on it,
and she writes, she prayed on it, and she realized she’d had this movie from
Netflix sitting on her desk for a week, and instead of zoning out, she watched that and it was
just what she needed.
She writes it better in the book, but I didn’t feel like typing out her
copy right now.
The point is, is that as I think about ways to rest and
restore lately, or as I look at how I have been resting and restoring, it looks
like marathon episodes of Buffy, my
friend having leant me the final two seasons of the tv show. -- Which yes can be fun, and restorative in moderation, but not 6 or 8 episodes in a row. So, yesterday,
after I came home from my depth hypnotherapist, I was feeling pretty raw and
discombobulated, and so I went for a walk. I knew if I stayed home, I’d just
watch Buffy into the night.
I walked a different way than I usually go, and wound up wandering past the
new location of the local library. As irony(?) would have it, I lost my wallet
on Wednesday at a café where I was meeting with two women to talk about my
finances, to make plans for the money I have and the back-rent I owe. So, now
wallet-less and library card-less, I went to the library.
I putzed around for some books, picking up one I knew I wanted
to read, and the rest that just spoke to me as appropriate, either in their
massive levity, or in their massive gravitas, i.e. healing, spiritual books,
etc. A funny thing happened there too. I had brought a book to the counter to
take out that was about healing particular trauma, but written about in a way I
hadn’t seen before, and as I stood there slightly embarrassed by the title of
the book (but, hey, I could be a research student(!)), the librarian said that
actually that title wasn’t in the system anymore, and I could simply have the book.
The library has had to downsize, hence the relocation into a
trailer on a public school property, and so this book was meant to be taken
from the shelves anyway – which is a shame, because I think it’d be a useful
thing to have in their repertoire. However, it serves me, because I now get to
keep this book that I know will take me a while to get through because of the
content and emotionalism.
I think the only reason I was even willing to pick up that
book was because I’d had my session with this new therapist. We didn’t do
anything “woo-woo” this first session, except at the end, after having given her my
“emotional biography,” I asked her how I was supposed to now go out into the
world with all this stuff stirred up and live my day. She suggested we do a
little meditation to ground, and center, and gather up my “guides,” and to know
that I can hold all that came up. So we did a few minutes of deep breathing
basically to help me be able to walk out into the world.
There’s a phrase I’ve heard which goes: It’s okay to look at
the past, just don’t stare at it.
Part of me has been questioning whether going over these
issues is just redigging at the past again and again, but the truth I feel and
have felt is that something is broken there and needs to be, and can be fixed. There’s a part of me too that acknowledges a
“Lady doth protest too much” around this stuff. That “when I’m fixed,” then I
can engage in the world, with men, with relationships. Till then, I’m broken
and off limits. This is not the “right” way either. I am both working on
things, and capable of trying to
engage with the world. Even though it seems scary. Even though I’ve been using
this grief and trauma as a shield for years.
But as a friend told me, we’re all always doing work. I’m going to continue doing work
till I die. Because that’s what being alive is. There is no sounding bell for
me to start my life, to engage with other people, to engage in activities that
bring me joy. There just is, as Brene puts it, the “Get Going” part.
So, in my morning pages, having then spent the rest of
yesterday afternoon following the library excursion watching Buffy into the night, I was writing what does feel restorative to me, what does feel restful. And as I wrote my list, I wrote the
word “Companionship,” and my phone rang.
A friend called me to invite me to see her sister
perform tonight, early, for the old and infirm like me! I’ve heard her sister’s
music, and it’s amazing. So, I said yes. And there we go, Companionship.
Restoration. And a Friday night where I get to feel like a human engaged in the
world, and not a patient trying to get well, or a scarred woman trying to heal.
Although ... Music. Friendship. Engagement. ? Sounds inadvertently healing
to me.
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